China's new crew has arrived at space station in sign of growing influence in space field

JIUQUAN, China -- A Chinese abstraction vessel carrying a three-person unit docked pinch its orbiting abstraction position Tuesday arsenic nan state seeks to grow its exploration of outer abstraction successful title pinch nan United States, moreover arsenic it looks for practice from different nations.

The squad of 2 men and 1 female will switch nan astronauts who person lived connected nan Tiangong abstraction position for nan past six months, conducting a assortment of experiments and maintaining nan structure.

They are expected to enactment until April aliases May of adjacent year. The caller ngo commander, Cai Xuzhe, went to abstraction successful nan Shenzhou-14 ngo successful 2022, while nan the different two, Song Lingdong and Wang Haoze, are first-time abstraction travelers. Song and Wang were calved successful nan 1990s and are graduates of nan 3rd activity of Chinese astronaut recruitment, having undergone a rigorous testing and training process taking years.

Early Wednesday morning, China declared nan motorboat and introduction into outerspace a “complete success.”

The Shenzhou-19 spaceship carrying nan trio blasted disconnected from nan Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center successful northwest China astatine 4:27 a.m. section clip atop a Long March-2F rocket, nan backbone of China’s crewed abstraction missions.

“The unit information is bully and nan motorboat has been successful,” nan authorities broadcaster China Central Television announced.

China built its own abstraction station aft being excluded from nan International Space Station, chiefly because of U.S. concerns complete nan People’s Liberation Army, nan Chinese Communist Party’s subject arm’s wide power complete nan abstraction program. China’s satellite programme is portion of a increasing rivalry pinch nan U.S. and others, including Japan and India.

The caller squad will switch nan astronauts who person lived connected nan Tiangong abstraction position for nan past six months and will overlap pinch them for a mates of days aliases more. They are expected to enactment until April aliases May of adjacent year.

The caller ngo commander, Cai Xuzhe, went to abstraction successful nan Shenzhou-14 ngo successful 2022, while nan different two, Song Lingdong and Wang Haoze, are first-time abstraction travelers, calved successful nan 1990s.

Song was an aerial unit aviator and Wang an technologist pinch nan China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. Wang will beryllium nan crew’s payload master and nan 3rd Chinese female aboard a crewed mission.

Besides putting a abstraction position into orbit, nan Chinese abstraction agency has landed an explorer connected Mars. It intends to put a personification connected nan moon earlier 2030, which would make China nan 2nd federation aft nan United States to do so. It besides plans to build a investigation position connected nan satellite and has already transferred stone and ungraded samples from nan satellite successful a first for immoderate federation successful decades, and placed a rover connected nan little-explored acold broadside of nan satellite successful a world first.

The U.S. still leads successful abstraction exploration and plans to onshore astronauts connected nan satellite for nan first clip successful much than 50 years, though NASA pushed nan target day back to 2026 earlier this year.

The caller Chinese unit will execute spacewalks and instal caller instrumentality to protect nan position from abstraction debris, immoderate of which was created by China.

According to NASA, ample pieces of debris person been created by “satellite explosions and collisions.” China’s firing of a rocket to destruct a redundant upwind outer successful 2007 and nan “accidental collision of American and Russian communications satellites successful 2009 greatly accrued nan magnitude of ample debris successful orbit,” it said.

China’s abstraction authorities opportunity they person measures successful spot successful lawsuit their astronauts person to return to Earth earlier.

China launched its first crewed ngo successful 2003, becoming only nan 3rd federation to do truthful aft nan erstwhile Soviet Union and nan United States. The abstraction programme is simply a root of tremendous nationalist pridefulness and a hallmark of China’s technological advances complete nan past 2 decades.

___

Associated Press shaper Caroline Chen contributed to this report.