China plans to send three astronauts to its space station (Tiangong) on Sunday, aboard the Shenzhou-23 spacecraft, on a mission that will last a full year for one of the crew members, which is the longest stay in space for China. The mission aims to study the effects of prolonged stays in space on the human body, and comes as part of Beijing’s preparations to send a manned mission to the moon by 2030. The spacecraft will launch from the Jiuquan Space Center in northwest China using a Long March-2F rocket at 11:08 p.m. (1508 GMT), carrying the three astronauts. Payload specialist Lai Ka-ying, a former Hong Kong police inspector, is participating as the city's first female astronaut in a Chinese space mission. The crew also includes mission commander Zhou Yangzhu and pilot Zhang Yuanzhi, both from the People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps.
Race to the Moon
One of the three crew members is scheduled to remain aboard the Tiangong station for a full year, in one of the longest space missions ever, although shorter than the record of 14.5 months set by a Russian cosmonaut in 1995. The Chinese manned space agency stated that the astronaut who will remain for this period will be determined later, according to the developments of the mission. Although China has carried out about ten manned missions to its space station, this trip comes amid an accelerating race between China and the United States toward the moon, and at a time when Washington has warned of what it says are Chinese plans to colonize and exploit the moon's resources, accusations that Beijing rejects.
Establishing a permanent lunar base by 2035
China launched its previous mission, Shenzhou-22, in November ahead of schedule to return three astronauts to Earth, after their Shenzhou-20 spacecraft was damaged by space debris in orbit. The successive missions of the Shenzhou program reflect the rapid development of China’s space capabilities. In June 2024, China became the first country to retrieve samples from the far side of the moon using robotic devices. A successful manned landing on the moon before 2030 would boost Beijing’s plans to establish a permanent lunar base by 2035 in cooperation with Russia. The Shenzhou-23 mission will perform the first fully automated, rapid docking and approach with the Tiangong station's core module, a preliminary step for
the 2030 mission, which relies on an automated lunar-orbit docking between the Mengzhou spacecraft and the Lanuwei lander. During the mission, scientists will study the effects of radiation, bone density loss, and psychological stress on the human body in space.
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