China sends its first civilian astronaut into space

On Tuesday, China will send its first civilian astronaut (taikonaut) as part of a manned mission to the Tiangong space station. Until now, all Chinese astronauts sent into space have been exclusively members of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Gui Haichao, a payload expert, will depart from the Jiuquan Space Center in northwest China on Tuesday, May 30, 2023 at 9:31 local time (04:31 Moscow time). This was reported by the Chinese manned space agency.

A spokesman for the space agency told reporters that the astronaut, a professor at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, will be "primarily responsible for operating experimental payloads in space science in orbit."

The team leader is Jing Haipeng, who is on his fourth spaceflight, according to PRC state media, and the third crew member is engineer Zhu Yangzhu.

China, which plans to land taikonauts on the moon by 2030, has poured billions of dollars into its military space program in an attempt to catch up with Russia and the United States. And the development of the Chinese space program is taking incredible steps.

The company completed construction of its third permanent Tiangong space station last year. The last module of the Tiangong T-ship, whose name means "heavenly palace", successfully docked with the main structure in November.

According to state news agency Xinhua, the station has several pieces of advanced scientific equipment, including "the world's first space-based cold atomic clock system."

Tiangong is expected to remain in low Earth orbit at an altitude of 400 to 450 kilometers above the planet for at least 10 years, in an effort to support a long-term human presence in space. It will be manned at all times by rotating crews of three astronauts who will conduct scientific experiments and help test new technologies.

Although China has no plans to use the Tiangong for global cooperation on the scale of the International Space Station, Beijing has said it is open to research cooperation.

It is not yet clear how extensive this cooperation will be. Recall that China has been effectively excluded from the International Space Station since 2011, when the United States, wanting to restrain the rapid development of China, banned NASA from interacting with Beijing.

Comments

[Infinity]

Quote from: wanna

The Europeans cut off contact with our space program due to claims of a lack of "funding".

The Europeans cut off communications for political reasons, not funding. They stopped the work of the eROSITA telescope on Spektr-RG (Rogozin promised to restart it on his own, but how did it restart? Spoiler: no)), interrupted preparations for the launch of the almost ready second stage of ExoMars (Now their Rosalind Franklin rover will fly with the American landing platform, and not on the "Kazachka", which is stuck in Europe and with which it is not clear what to do, except just to launch it to Mars, since it has a scientific load), the Euclid telescope will fly not on the Russian launch vehicle, but on Elon Musk's Falcon 9, all satellites OneWeb, which should have been launched on our launch vehicles, has already been launched on Falcon 9 and Indian LVM (although Rogozin promised the bankruptcy of OneWeb, but who would have thought that this prediction of his would not come true ...).
No, it's not about the money.

By the way. Congratulations to the Chinese on their first civilian taikonaut. Let me remind you that historically the first fully civilian cosmonaut was Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov (the first civilian in space, our first non-partisan, and (here I can already be mistaken) the first scientist (at the time of the flight - candidate of science) in space). In our country, however, not all "comrades" love him, since he was a supporter of the party of robotic, and not manned, space exploration, severely criticized the Energia-Buran project for its enormous cost and impracticality (I agree with the first, partially with the second) and for being a supporter of the official version of the stay of people on the moon, like Alexei Leonov (for some, this is just a "red rag").

[slipped]

Quote: Infinity

The Europeans cut off communications for political reasons, not funding. We stopped the work of the eROSITA telescope at Spektr-RG (Rogozin promised to restart it on his own, but how did it restart? Spoiler: no)),

Thus, "shooting themselves in the foot" - scientists from the ESA project are still in shock. "Spektr-RG" continues to work using our telescope ART-XC im. Pavlinsky - recently observed the brightest gamma-ray burst in the history of mankind. Unfortunately, Rogozin did not have time to implement his plan - the new leadership of Roscosmos and scientists from the IKI RAS working on the project abandoned the idea of ​​​​waking up the European device from sleep mode, although this is technically possible - the station is completely under our control.

Quote: Infinity

interrupted preparations for the launch of the almost ready second stage of ExoMars (Now their Rosalind Franklin rover will fly with an American landing platform, and not on the Cossack, which is stuck in Europe and with which it is not clear what to do, except just to launch it to Mars, fortunately on it there is a scientific load)

At the moment, the MAI is working on a project for a mars-solder, which can replace the European rover on our platform.

Quote: Infinity

the Euclid telescope will fly not on the Russian launch vehicle, but on Elon Musk's Falcon 9,

With a one year delay, with a big loss of ESA money to pay for the launch.

Quote: Infinity

all OneWeb satellites that were supposed to be launched on our launch vehicles have already been launched on Falcon 9 and Indian LVMs (although Rogozin promised the bankruptcy of OneWeb, but who would have thought that this prediction of his would not come true ...).

Russia did not have any financial losses from the failure to launch the remaining OneWeb, and the built missiles are used for other commercial launches.

[Lech from Android.]

Russia needs to close all activities on the ISS and focus on its national space program.
There is no need for us now for some reason to help the Americans ... it's all empty.
Well done Chinese ... slowly but surely they are working for the good of their country.

[slipped]

Quote: Lech from Android.

Russia needs to close all activities on the ISS and focus on its national space program.

Are you suggesting "shoot yourself in the foot" too? We have a large Russian segment completely and finally deployed in orbit, and two modules are completely new - they can be safely operated for another six years, performing various space experiments on board under the national federal space program. In the near future, a powerful radar complex will be deployed on the ISS RS.

Quote: Lech from Android.

There is no need for us now for some reason to help the Americans ... it's all empty.

At the moment, we can safely use Western equipment in our space program, which is a common contribution - for example, we use the European EPA manipulator in all exits, and also recently used the electric furnace of the Columbus module for our experiments with crystals.

Quote: Lech from Android.

Well done Chinese ... slowly but surely they are working for the good of their country.

Our cosmonauts are also great and also work for the good of their country.

[Nexcom]

Taikonauts are quietly occupying near-Earth space....
And where do we go then?

[nepunamemuk]

how where?
Space is great
you want to go to mars
do you want to go to jupiter

[carpenter]

Quote from: nepunamemuk

you want to go to mars
do you want to go to jupiter

And you can go further, in the Cosmos, millions of planets, forward. Just don't forget the Farm Paradox.

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Quote: Nexcom

Taikonauts are quietly occupying near-Earth space....
And where do we go then?

Only today new crews of our new spaceships, Soyuz MS-24 and Soyuz MS-25, have been appointed. In addition to delivering our cosmonauts to the station's permanent crew, we will fly a cosmonaut from Belarus and two Americans to the ISS according to the cross-flight plan.

[Boniface]

China in 3 years - just made a huge leap in space exploration! and the Chang'e-4 lunar satellite (2018) and the Station were launched - and taikonauts into outer space - and now a breakthrough for them!

[Mekey Iptyshev]

10 years, 10 years have passed since the ban imposed by the Americans against the stay of the Chinese on the ISS. Now China is independent in this matter.
I watched a Chinese program on space sanctions against China in 2011-12 and how they overcame difficulties. Now they have their own near-Earth station, lunar rovers and a rover and a satellite around Mars. And this is 10 years after the NASA ban. Their plans are such that in 5 years the ISS will be a "baby" compared to the "giant station in China." And I tend to believe them after the work done.
I will add that they promote astronautics at the level of school education. They showed schoolchildren whose school project won and their school satellite will be launched into space. Do we have such propaganda in schools? I only see competitions for the best singers or dancers on TV. Not a single program "make a project for space, your school or circle will receive a grant for further development."

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Quote: Mekey Iptyshev

Do we have such propaganda in schools? I only see competitions for the best singers or dancers on TV. Not a single program "make a project for space, your school or circle will receive a grant for further development."

For many years now there has been an educational program "On duty on the planet", within its framework several projects are being developed. The most interesting of them is the project Space-pi - schoolchildren of secondary schools and university students assemble various small spacecraft with various interesting payloads, and Roscosmos puts them into orbit along the way.

Today, 19 ISCs of the project are operating in space. And next month, the launch of 16 more ICAs. In total, it is planned to withdraw about a hundred cubesats.

More details on the website https://spacepi.space