Three astronauts aboard China’s Shenzhou-15 spacecraft entered the country’s space station on Wednesday and joined three other crew members who were already there. The mission of these men is to complete the construction of the Chinese space station Tiangong.
The newly arrived astronauts will replace the other team and will not return to Earth for another six months. Fei Junlong, one of the astronauts, 57 years old, returns to space 17 years after the last trip, in which he commanded the Shenzhou-6 mission.
“The main responsibilities of the mission are to achieve the first launch of the crew into orbit, install equipment and other facilities inside and outside the space station, and conduct scientific experiments,” Ji Qiming, a spokesman for China’s space agency CMSA, said in a statement. AFP.
When completed, the Tiangong space station is expected to be similar in size to the Soviet-built Mir station, which orbited Earth from the 1980s to 2021. Tiangong, meaning “heavenly palace,” it will run for about a decade and will host a variety of near-zero gravity experiences.
Next year, Beijing plans to launch the Xuntian Space Telescope with a field of view 350 times greater than NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
Source: TSF
