China yesterday launched a rocket carrying three astronauts on a mission to complete construction on its new space station, the latest milestone in Beijing’s drive to become a major space power.
The trio blasted off in a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan launch center in northwestern China’s Gobi desert, with the team to spend six months expanding the Tiangong space station, state broadcaster China Central Television said.
Tiangong, which means “heavenly palace,” is expected to become fully operational by the end of this year. China’s heavily promoted space program has already seen the nation land a rover on Mars and send probes to the moon.
Photo: AFP
The Shenzhou-14 crew is tasked with “completing in-orbit assembly and construction of the space station,” as well as “commissioning of equipment” and conducting scientific experiments, state-run China Global Television Network said on Saturday.
Led by air force pilot Chen Dong (陳冬), the three-person crew’s main challenge is to connect the station’s two lab modules to the main body.
Dong, along with fellow pilots Liu Yang (劉洋) and Cai Xuzhe (蔡旭哲), are to become the second crew to spend six months aboard the Tiangong after the last returned to Earth in April following 183 days on the space station.
Tiangong’s core module entered orbit earlier last year and is expected to operate for at least a decade.
The station shares a similar design with the Soviet Mir station that orbited Earth from the 1980s until 2001.
The world’s second-largest economy has poured billions into its military-run space program, with hopes of having a permanently crewed space station this year and eventually sending humans to the moon.
The country has made large strides in catching up with the US and Russia, whose astronauts and cosmonauts have decades of experience in space exploration.
Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the country’s plans for its heavily promoted “space dream” have been put into overdrive.
In addition to a space station, Beijing is also planning to build a base on the moon, and the Chinese National Space Administration said it aims to launch a crewed lunar mission by 2029.
China has been excluded from the International Space Station (ISS) since 2011, when the US banned NASA from engaging with the country.
While China does not plan to use its space station for global cooperation on the scale of the ISS, Beijing has said it is open to foreign collaboration.
The ISS is due for retirement after 2024, although NASA has said it could remain functional until 2030.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
RSS