China sends astronaut on year-long space mission as it eyes 2030 moon landing
The astronaut selected for the extended stay is set to be decided later, depending on how the mission progresses
China sent three astronauts to its space station on Sunday, including one who is set to remain in orbit for a year — the country’s longest space mission to date — as Beijing steps up preparations for a crewed moon landing by 2030.
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The Shenzhou-23 spacecraft blasted off at 23:08 local time (15:08 GMT) on a Long March-2F Y23 rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in north-west China.
The crew included Li Jiaying, a former Hong Kong police inspector and the first astronaut from Hong Kong to join a Chinese space mission, alongside commander Zhu Yangzhu and pilot Zhang Yuanzhi, both from the People’s Liberation Army astronaut corps.
One of the three astronauts is expected to remain aboard the Tiangong space station for a year, which would make it one of the longest space missions on record – just short of the 14-and-a-half-month mark set by the Russians in 1995.
China’s Manned Space Agency said on Saturday that the astronaut selected for the extended stay would be decided later, depending on how the mission progresses.
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The launch comes as competition between China and the US to return humans to the moon gathers pace.
Washington has accused Beijing of seeking to dominate lunar territory and resources, claims China has repeatedly rejected.
NASA is targeting a crewed moon landing in 2028, two years ahead of China’s stated goal, as part of a wider plan to establish a sustained presence on the lunar surface and eventually send humans to Mars.
China, meanwhile, faces a major technical challenge if it is to meet its 2030 deadline.
It must develop and test a new generation of hardware and software for a crewed lunar landing, including systems capable of safely carrying astronauts from the relative security of low-Earth orbit to the far riskier environment of the moon.
Since 2021, China’s Shenzhou programme has routinely sent teams of three astronauts to Tiangong for missions lasting around six months.
The country is also training two Pakistani astronauts, one of whom could join a future short-duration mission to the station as early as this year.
A successful moon landing before 2030 would strengthen Beijing’s broader ambition of building a permanent lunar base with Russia by 2035.
In preparation, China has spent the past year carrying out safety tests on equipment intended for the mission, including the Long March-10 heavy-lift rocket, the Mengzhou spacecraft and the Lanyue lunar lander.
The Shenzhou-23 mission will also carry out Tiangong’s first autonomous rapid rendezvous and docking procedure with the station’s core module, a step seen as important for China’s future lunar plans, which rely on automated docking in orbit around the moon.
Scientists are also expected to use the mission to study the effects of prolonged spaceflight, including radiation exposure, bone density loss and psychological stress.