China plans to complete permanent space station with latest mission

BEIJING: China is preparing to launch a new three-person mission to complete work on its permanent orbiting space station, the country’s China Manned Space Agency said on Saturday.

The Shenzhou 14 crew will spend six months on the Tiangong station, during which they will oversee the addition of two laboratory modules to join the main Tianhe living space that was launched in April 2021.

Their spaceship is due to blast off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre on the edge of the Gobi Desert on Sunday at about 10.44am local time, the agency said.

Commander Chen Dong and fellow astronauts Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe will assemble the three-module structure joining the existing Tianhe with Wentian and Mengtian, due to arrive in July and October. Another cargo craft, the Tianzhou-3, remains docked with the station.

China’s space program launched its first astronaut into orbit in 2003, making China only the third country to do so on its own after the former Soviet Union and the US.

It has landed robot rovers on the moon and placed one on Mars last year. China has also returned lunar samples, and officials have discussed a possible crewed mission to the moon.

China’s space program is run by the ruling Communist Party’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army, prompting the US to exclude it from the International Space Station.

Chen, Liu and Cai will be joined at the end of their mission for three to five days by the crew of the upcoming Shenzhou 15, marking the first time the station will have had six people aboard.