Members of the Shenzhou XV space mission — Fei Junlong center Deng Qingming right and Zhang Lu — meet the media on Monday during a news conference at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest China. WANG JIANGBO China is going to launch three astronauts in the Shenzhou XV mission to the country's space station on Tuesday night, a space program official said on Monday.
Ji Qiming, Assistant Director of the China Manned Space Agency, said at a news conference at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China that the crew members — Major General Fei Junlong, Senior Colonel Deng Qingming and Senior Colonel Zhang Lu — are scheduled to be on board the Shenzhou XV spacecraft that will be lifted by a Long March 2 F carrier rocket at 11: 08 pm from the Jiuquan center in the barren Gobi Desert.
The Long March 2 F rocket was filled with propellants at the service tower on Monday morning.
After the Shenzhou XV spacecraft enters orbit, the rapid rendezvous-docking mode will be activated to approach and connect with the Tianhe core module, according to the official.
The crew of Shenzhou XV will stay inside the Tiangong space station for six months and will return to Earth in May. He said that they will carry three to four spacewalks during the mission to mount equipment outside the station.
In addition to spacewalks, their major duties include unlocking, installing and testing 15 scientific cabinets, conducting more than 40 scientific experiments and technological demonstrations, and carrying out six cargo orbital deployment operations, Ji said.
Fei's team is going to make the first in-orbit handover with the three Shenzhou XIV crew members who have been orbiting Earth for nearly six months.
As many as six Chinese people are traveling in space at the same time, it will be the first time that they are traveling in space at the same time. There have been three Chinese astronauts in space at a time.
The official said that the Shenzhou XIV astronauts are expected to return to a landing site in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region within a week of the arrival of the Shenzhou XV crew.
Colonel Chen Dong, the Shenzhou XIV mission commander, now holds the record for the longest in-orbit time of a Chinese astronaut after spending a total of 209 days in space on two space missions.
The crew of the Shenzhou XV mission, China's 10th manned spaceflight, will be the fourth group of visitors to the Tiangong station, which has been traveling in a 400 kilometer low-Earth orbit since April.
Over the past four months, two massive space lab modules have been launched to become parts of Tiangong. The arrival of the second lab module, Mengtian, the world's largest single-body spacecraft now in active service, marked the completion of the space station's in-orbit assembly.
The Tiangong station is currently a tributary of the Tianhe core module, the Wentian and Mengtian lab modules, the Shenzhou XIV spacecraft and the recently docked Tianzhou 5 cargo ship.
Tiangong has an overall weight of nearly 100 metric tons, one of the largest pieces of space-based infrastructure mankind has ever built and deployed in outer space. Space officials have said that it is expected to operate in its low-Earth orbit for about 10 years and will be open to foreign astronauts in the near future.
In the near future, China will deploy a space telescope to fly alongside the station of Tiangong, according to Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the space agency. He said that he said that the telescope will conduct short-time docking with the station for resupply, maintenance and upgrading purposes.
When responding to a question about China's timetable for a lunar landing, Ji said that scientists, engineers and program planners have made specific plans and have been working to develop required technologies.