The Shenzhou 23 mission has been a success on its journey to Tiangongaccording to various Chinese media reports. In these, this milestone is noted as a great step forward in China’s race to the Moon. Certainly, each of these advances brings the Asian country closer to our satellite. However, it should be noted that the milestones achieved with this latest mission are rather achievements of the Chinese space race in general, and not so specific to lunar exploration.
It is also worth noting that several records have been broken or are expected to be broken, but again these are particular records for this nation, not worldwide. All this indicates that they have the capacity of the great space powers, although much of what they are doing has already been done before.
Three new taikonauts in space. This May 24, three taikonauts (the name by which Chinese astronauts are known in the West) they left with the help of a Long March rocket heading to the Tiangong space station. Docking with one of the station’s ports was carried out without problems 3.5 hours later. Two of the ship’s three crew members are expected to spend around 6 months in these facilities. The normal thing in these missions. However, one of them, which has not yet been specified, will break the record for spending a year in space.
Background. There have already been other astronauts who have spent about a year in space. At NASA, the record is held by astronaut Frank Rubio, who spent 371 days aboard the International Space Station. Before him, at the top of the US space agency was Mark Vande Hei, with 355 days. However, both are far short of the 437 days Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov spent at the Russian Mir station.
The crew. The three crew members of this Chinese mission are Zhu Yangzhu, Zhang Zhiyuan and Li Jiaying. The latter is the fourth female taikonaut and the first person from Hong Kong to travel to space. Before, she was a police inspector.
More first times. The next mission to Tiangong will have a Pakistani astronaut on board, so firsts will continue to be achieved.
Future experiments. The astronauts who have now arrived at the Chinese space station will carry out various experiments, related to medicine, materials science, fluid physics, biology and medicine. Highlights include those carried out by the crew member who will extend his stay up to a year, since he will be the one in charge of studying how it affects microgravity to the human body in long stays. It will also focus on the psychological effects of confinement and, in general, everything that could affect the health of the next lunar colonists.
Target: the Moon. Of course China has its sights set on the Moon. In fact, with their Chang’e missions, they have done a very exhaustive study of our satellite. They have managed to map it, land on your hidden side and collect samples and return them to Earth for analysis. Even has been made to germinate a seed in a simulated biosphere, within the selenite territory. The Chinese Academy of Sciences has sufficient knowledge about the Moon and has also proven to have more than competent technologies.
Their goal is to land on the moon in 2030. NASA’s is set for 2028, but everything can change. At the moment, China is advancing at a good pace in its space race and that, without a doubt, is great news. At the end of the day, we should see the space race as a goal of humanity, not so much as a race between countries.
Images | CMSA
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