China Sends Youngest Astronaut to Tiangong Space Station

AFP

Beijing: China launched a new crew of three astronauts — including its youngest-ever spacefarer — and four laboratory mice to the Tiangong space station early Saturday, marking another milestone in the country’s ambitious space programme.

According to state news agency Xinhua, the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft docked with Tiangong at 3:22am (1922 GMT Friday), around three and a half hours after lifting off aboard a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China.

The crew includes mission commander and veteran astronaut Zhang Lu, 32-year-old flight engineer Wu Fei — China’s youngest astronaut to travel to space — and payload specialist Zhang Hongzhang, 39. The trio bid farewell to family members and colleagues at the Gobi Desert launch site before embarking on their six-month mission.

Four mice — two male and two female — are accompanying the astronauts as part of China’s first in-orbit experiments on rodents, aimed at studying biological responses to microgravity.

The Tiangong space station, permanently crewed by rotating teams of three astronauts, represents the centrepiece of China’s efforts to rival the United States and Russia in space exploration. Beijing has invested billions in its “space dream,” which includes plans to send astronauts to the Moon by 2030 and eventually establish a lunar base.

“Each of us will report back to our motherland and its people with complete success,” Zhang Lu said ahead of the launch, while first-time astronaut Wu Fei described himself as “incomparably lucky” to join the mission.

During their stay, the crew will conduct spacewalks, install anti-debris shields on the station’s exterior, and perform scientific experiments. They will also take part in educational outreach activities to inspire young space enthusiasts, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

China, which became the third country to independently send humans into orbit after the United States and the former Soviet Union, has rapidly advanced its programme under President Xi Jinping. It successfully landed the Chang’e-4 probe on the far side of the Moon in 2019 — a world first — and deployed a rover on Mars in 2021.

Excluded from the International Space Station since 2011 due to a U.S. ban on NASA’s cooperation with Beijing, China has sought to expand its own partnerships. Earlier this year, it signed an agreement with Pakistan to recruit the first foreign “taikonauts” for future missions.