China launches year-long space mission as race for the Moon intensifies
The name of the person who will spend a full year in space will be determined later (Photo: Getty Images)
China sent three astronauts to its space station on Sunday, one of whom will stay there for an entire year. Such a duration is a record for the country, reports Reuters.
The Shenzhou-23 spacecraft launched at 23:08 using a Long March-2F Y23 carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China. On board the spacecraft are three Chinese astronauts.
The flight crew includes payload specialist and former Hong Kong police inspector Li Jiaying, as well as commander Zhu Yangzhu and pilot Zhang Yuanzhi — both from the astronaut corps of the People's Liberation Army of China.
One of the astronauts will stay on the Tiangong space station for an entire year, which will be one of the longest space missions in history, though it will fall short of the 14.5‑month record set by a Russian cosmonaut in 1995.
The name of the three crew members who will remain on the station for a full year will be determined later, depending on the mission's progress.
China and the US are aiming for the Moon
Reuters notes that China has sent its astronauts to its space station nearly a dozen times, but this launch comes amid an accelerated race to the Moon with the United States, which has warned about Beijing's alleged plans for colonisation and resource extraction on the Moon.
Furthermore, the current mission will enable the study of human physiology under long‑duration spaceflight conditions, as China specifically intends to carry out a crewed Moon landing by 2030.
NASA, for its part, aims to achieve a crewed Moon landing by 2028 — two years earlier than China. The US has set the goal of creating a long‑term presence on the Moon as a stepping stone to further human exploration of Mars.
With less than four years remaining before the 2030 deadline, China faces a difficult task — developing entirely new equipment and software specifically designed for the lunar mission to prove its readiness.
Thus, this will allow PRC astronauts, who are accustomed to the relative safety of the Tiangong station in low Earth orbit, to safely make the more risky transition to the lunar surface.
The agency also added that a successful crewed landing by 2030 would accelerate China's plans to build a permanent lunar base by 2025 in cooperation with Russia.
What else is known
A few weeks ago, it became known that Chinese scientists had installed experimental samples of human artificial embryos on the space station. The goal of the experiment is to investigate how the space environment affects early cell development and the potential future of long‑term human habitation in space.
In addition, this year, the media reported that Chinese scientists have developed a microwave weapon, the TPG1000Cs, capable of disabling Starlink satellites and other objects in low Earth orbit.
