China To Launch “Shenzhou-12” as the First Human Spaceflight Since 2016

By Staff, Agencies

A Chinese spacecraft will blast off from the Gobi Desert on a Long March rocket in the coming days, ferrying three men to an orbiting space module for a three-month stay, the first time China has sent humans into space for nearly five years.

Shenzhou-12, meaning “Divine Vessel”, will be the third of 11 missions needed to complete China’s space station by 2022. Among them, four will be missions with people on board, potentially propelling up to 12 Chinese astronauts into space – more than the 11 men and women that China has sent since 2003.

Chinese astronauts have had a relatively low international profile. A United States law banning NASA from any connection with China means its astronauts have not been to the more-than-two-decade-old International Space Station, visited by more than 240 men and women of various nationalities.

China, which aims to become a major spacefaring power by 2030, in May became the second country to put a rover on Mars, two years after landing the first spacecraft on the far side of the moon.

It also plans to put astronauts on the moon.

The Shenzhou-12 crew is to live on the Tianhe, “Harmony of the Heavens”, a cylinder 16.6 meters long and 4.2 meters in diameter.

The planned three-month stay would break the country’s record of 30 days, set by the 2016 mission – China’s last crewed flight – of Chen Dong and Jing Haipeng to a prototype station.

Three men from China’s first and second groups of astronauts will be on this mission, Yang Liwei, director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office and China’s first astronaut, told the state-run news agency Global Times last month.