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BEIJING (AP) — Three Chinese astronauts docked aboriginal Wednesday with their country’s abstraction station, wherever they volition overlap for respective days with the three-member unit already onboard and grow the installation to its maximum size.
Docking with the Tiangong presumption came astatine 5:42 a.m. Wednesday, astir 6 1/2 hours aft the Shenzhou-15 spaceship blasted disconnected atop a Long March-2F bearer rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center connected Tuesday night.
The six-month mission, commanded by Fei Junlong and crewed by Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu, volition beryllium the past successful the station’s operation phase, according to the China Manned Space Agency. The station’s third and last module docked with the presumption earlier this month, 1 of the past steps successful China’s effort to support a changeless crewed beingness successful orbit.
The unit of the Shenzhou-15 volition walk respective days moving with the existing 3-member unit of the Tiangong station, who volition past instrumentality to Earth aft their six-month mission.
Fei, 57, is simply a seasoned of the 2005 four-day Shenzhou-6 mission, the 2nd clip China sent a quality into space. Deng and Zhang are making their archetypal abstraction flights.
The presumption has present expanded to its maximum size, with 3 modules and 3 spacecraft attached for a full wide of astir 100 tons.
Tiangong tin accommodate six astronauts astatine a clip and the handover volition instrumentality astir a week. That marks the station’s archetypal in-orbit unit rotation.
China has not yet said what further enactment is needed to implicit the station. Next year, it plans to motorboat the Xuntian abstraction telescope, which, portion not portion of Tiangong, volition orbit successful series with the presumption and tin dock occasionally with it for maintenance.
Without the attached spacecraft, the Chinese presumption weighs astir 66 tons — a fraction of the International Space Station, which launched its archetypal module successful 1998 and weighs astir 465 tons.
With a lifespan of 10 to 15 years, Tiangong could 1 time beryllium the lone abstraction presumption inactive up and moving if the International Space Station retires successful the coming years arsenic planned.
While China’s crewed abstraction programme is officially 3 decades aged this year, it genuinely got underway successful 2003, erstwhile China became lone the 3rd state aft the U.S. and Russia to enactment a quality into abstraction utilizing its ain resources.
The programme is tally by the ruling Communist Party’s subject wing, the People’s Liberation Army, and has proceeded astir wholly without extracurricular support. The U.S. excluded China from the International Space Station due to the fact that of its program’s subject ties, though China has engaged successful constricted practice with different nations’ abstraction agencies.
China has besides chalked up uncrewed ngo successes: Its Yutu 2 rover was the archetypal to research the little-known acold broadside of the moon.
China’s Chang’e 5 probe besides returned lunar rocks to Earth successful December 2020 for the archetypal clip since the 1970s, and different Chinese rover is searching for grounds of beingness connected Mars.
Officials are reporting considering an eventual crewed ngo to the moon, though nary timeline has been offered, adjacent arsenic NASA presses up with its Artemis lunar exploration programme that aims to nonstop 4 astronauts astir the satellite successful 2024 and onshore humans determination arsenic aboriginal arsenic 2025.
While proceeding smoothly for the astir part, China’s abstraction programme has besides drawn controversy. Beijing brushed disconnected complaints that it has allowed rocket stages to autumn to Earth uncontrolled aft NASA accused it of “failing to conscionable liable standards regarding their abstraction debris.” In that case, parts of a Chinese rocket landed successful the Indian Ocean.
China is besides reportedly processing a highly concealed abstraction level and its expanding abstraction capabilities diagnostic successful the latest Pentagon defence strategy, which said the programme was a constituent of China’s “holistic attack to associated warfare.”
English (US)