Shenzhou-12: China to launch first human space flight since 2016 Space News

Shenzhou-12, which is the “Divine Ship,” will be the third of 11 missions needed to complete China’s space station by 2022.

A Chinese spacecraft will set off from the Gobi Desert in the coming days on a long-range rocket to carry a three-month stay to a space module orbiting three men, the first time China has sent humans into space in nearly five years.

Shenzhou-12, which means “Divine Ship,” will be the third of 11 missions required to complete China’s space station by 2022. Among them will be four missions aboard the ship, which are propelled into space by 12 Chinese astronauts – more than 11 men and women sent by China since 2003.

Crafts will bring the hopes of some of the most populous nations on Earth to space.

“The homeland is strong,” one person wrote on Chinese social media, which clarified the wishes of the Shenzhou-12 crew. “The launch is a gift for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party.”

Chinese astronauts have had a relatively low international profile. Because U.S. law prohibits NASA from making any connections to China, astronauts have not been on the International Space Station for more than two decades, with more than 240 men and women from various nations visiting it.

China, which aims to become a major space power by 2030, became the second country to launch a vehicle on Mars in May, two years after the first spacecraft landed at the far end of the moon.

The astronaut also plans to land on the moon.

This time, men

The crew of Shenzhou-12 will have to live in Tianhe, a “Heavenly Harmony”, 16.6 meters long and 4.2 meters in diameter.

The planned three-month stay would break the country’s record of 30 days, with the 2016 mission — the last flight of a Chinese crew — set by Chen Dong and Jing Haipeng at a prototype station.

Three men from China’s first and second astronaut teams will be on the mission, Yang Liwei, director of China’s Manned Space Engineering Office and China’s first astronaut, told the state-run Global Times news agency last month.

Chinese space bloggers speculate that the astronauts will be Nie Haisheng – the oldest Chinese astronaut sent into space at the age of 56, Deng Qingming, 55, and Ye Guangfu, 40.

Authorities typically do not announce a mission crew until the launch or shortly thereafter. China Manned Space has not responded to Reuters’ request for a fax comment.

The oldest man in space was John Glenn, who flew in a space shuttle at the age of 77 in 1998 – after being the first American to orbit the earth in 1962, after becoming a U.S. senator and presidential candidate.

While no women are scheduled for the Shenzhou-12 mission, they are expected to participate in all future missions, Yang told the Global Times.

Two women, Liu Yang and Wang Yaping, were chosen from China’s second cohort in 2011 after a first batch of 14 men in the mid-1990s. Liu was the first Chinese woman in space in 2012, while the youngest Wang was 33 in 2013.

China began construction of the space station Tianhe in April, launching the first and largest of its three modules. This year it aims to send a spacecraft to supply the robotic cargo and three other astronauts, this time for a six-month stay.