China will send three astronauts into orbit on Thursday in a high-stakes mission, the first of four crewed space flights to complete the country's space station by the end of next year.
Chinese astronauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming, and Tang Hongbo wave as they meet members of the media behind a glass wall before the Shenzhou-12 mission to build China's space station, at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center near Jiuquan, Gansu province, China June 16, 2021.
The three-month stay for Nie, Liu and Tang will be the longest for any Chinese astronauts, and one focus will be seeing how the men handle their relatively long time in orbit. Liu, with the help of another astronaut, used a crowbar to pry open the hatch after it refused to budge. The ISS may be decommissioned in 2024 if the project does not receive new funding, and China could end up being the operator of the only space station in Earth's orbit.
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