There are currently six astronauts at the Thien Cung orbital station. The Shenzhou 21, carrying a new crew of three, met the Shenzhou 20 crew, who have been working at the station since April.
Let us remind you: the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft launched on October 31 at 23:44 Beijing time (18:44 Moscow time) from the Jiuquan Cosmodrome (Northern China). About ten minutes after launch, it enters the designated orbit and after three and a half hours it docks with the station. According to the China Manned Space Administration, the crew is in good condition.
The new arrivals have six months of work and 27 experiments ahead, aimed at developing research in the field of astrobiology and studying the long-term presence of humans in space. Along with the astronauts, four laboratory mice flew to Tiangong – two males and two females. This is China's first orbital experiment with mammals. And it will start as soon as both crews – Shenzhou-20 and Shenzhou-21 – board the ship at the same time, New-Science.ru reported. After returning to Earth, the rodents were examined to determine changes in various tissues and organs under microgravity conditions.
In addition, the new crew will install protective shielding against space debris, test promising new generation space suits and carry out a series of scientific experiments in the fields of biotechnology, materials science, microgravity physics and advanced space technology.
Commanding the Shenzhou-21 mission is experienced astronaut Zhang Lu, who flew into space three years ago. Along with him, Wu Fei, 32 years old from the China Academy of Space Technology, was also on the same flight. And he is China's youngest astronaut to reach orbit. Also on the crew was Zhang Hongzhang, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences specializing in vanadium flow batteries and energy storage systems.
The current flight is the tenth manned flight on Tiangong since 2021. Construction of the station began in April 2021 with the launch of the Tianhe station base module into orbit. The second module, Wentian, was launched in July 2022 and the third module, Mengtian, in October of the same year. This is the third multi-module manned orbital station in the world after the Mir station and the ISS.
