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1 of 2 | Astronauts of Shenzhou 18 spaceflight mission Ye Guangfu (C), Li Cong (R), and Li Guangsu attend a press conference Wednesday in Jiuquan, Gansu province, China. The manned spaceflight mission, scheduled for Thursday, is the third of China Space Station’s development phase as the country targets a manned lunar landing by the end of the decade. Photo by Wu Hao/EPA-EFE
April 24 (UPI) — China will launch three crew members into low-Earth orbit Thursday for a six-month mission at Tiangong space station, as China prepares to put astronauts on the moon before the end of the decade.
The Shenzhou 18 astronauts will launch aboard a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China on Thursday night, and are expected to reach Tiangong space station about seven hours later.
The Shenzhou 18 crew members Ye Guangfu, 43, Li Cong, 34, and Li Guangsu, 36, were introduced at a news conference Wednesday on China’s national space day. They will take over for the Shenzhou 17 crew, currently at Tiangong, who will return to Earth in their own spacecraft on April 30.
The Shenzhou 18 crew will spend the next six months monitoring and making repairs to the functioning and performance of the space station, in addition to extravehicular activities, or spacewalks.
“The Shenzhou 18 astronauts will carry out six cargo outbound deliveries via the station’s cargo airlock module and implement two to three extravehicular activities,” Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the CMSA, told reporters.
“During the extravehicular activities, the astronauts will install space debris protection reinforcements for extravehicular piping, cables and critical equipment, and carry out extravehicular inspections, as appropriate, to further safeguard the safety of the space station,” he said.
China Manned Space Agency started building Tiangong space station in April 2021 after the space agency put its core module into orbit.
Shenzhou 18 will be the seventh crew to visit Tiangong, with China planning to keep the space station occupied and operational for the next 10 years. The crew is scheduled to return to the Dongfeng landing site in late October.
“The China Space Station has been fully completed,” Ye Guangfu told reporters Wednesday. “I believe that the continuous development of China’s aerospace industry will make greater contributions to building a community with a shared future for mankind.”
In addition to introducing the astronauts for Thursday’s launch to Tiangong, the China Manned Space Engineering Office provided a rare update on the country’s crewed lunar program, saying China is on target to reach the moon by 2030.
“The program development for major flight products, including the Long March 10 rocket, the Mengzhou crew spacecraft, the lunar lander Lanyue and the lunar landing suits, are all complete,” said Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of CMSEO. “Their prototype production and tests are in full swing.”
China’s crewed moon landing mission is part of the country’s larger plan to establish a robotic and inhabited moon base under an initiative known as the International Lunar Research Station.
The United States is working to return astronauts to the moon with its Artemis 3 mission, which has been delayed to no earlier than September 2026. A report by the Government Accountability Office in December 2023 found the mission is not likely to happen before 2027.
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