China to Send Astronaut on Year-Long Space Mission as It Eyes 2030 Moon Landing

Reuters

China's Astronauts Zhu Yangzhu, Zhang Zhiyuan, and Lai Ka-ying.

China is set to launch a new crewed mission to its Tiangong space station on Sunday, with one astronaut expected to remain in orbit for a full year — the longest space mission in the country’s history — as Beijing accelerates preparations for a planned crewed moon landing by 2030.

The Shenzhou-23 mission is scheduled to launch at 11:08 p.m. local time (1508 GMT) aboard a Long March-2F Y23 rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in north-western China.

The three-member crew includes payload specialist Li Jiaying, who will become the first astronaut from Hong Kong to participate in a Chinese space mission. The other crew members are commander Zhu Yangzhu and pilot Zhang Yuanzhi, both members of the People’s Liberation Army astronaut corps.

According to the China Manned Space Agency, one astronaut will remain aboard Tiangong for a year, depending on the mission’s progress. The extended mission is intended to support research into the long-term effects of spaceflight on the human body, including radiation exposure, bone density loss, and psychological stress.

China’s expanding space ambitions come amid intensifying competition with the United States over future lunar exploration. Beijing aims to conduct a crewed moon landing before 2030 and establish a permanent lunar base with Russia by 2035.

Meanwhile, NASA is targeting a crewed lunar landing in 2028 under its Artemis programme. Earlier this year, four NASA astronauts completed a historic lunar flyby during the Artemis II mission.

China has so far only sent robotic missions to the moon, but its rapid advances in space technology have drawn increasing international attention. In June 2024, China became the first country to retrieve lunar samples from the far side of the moon.

The Shenzhou-23 mission will also test autonomous rapid docking procedures with Tiangong, technology regarded as essential for future lunar missions involving orbital rendezvous and spacecraft transfers.

Chinese state media additionally reported that scientists are conducting what has been described as the world’s first “artificial embryo” experiment in space, using human stem cell samples sent to Tiangong earlier this month to study the long-term survival and reproduction of humans in space environments.

Source: Reuters



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