Mengzhou-1 spacecraft will depart from the Wenchang Launch Center in Hainan province aboard the Long March rocket
The (China Manned Space Agency, in Portuguese) announced on Sunday (2.Nov.2025) that it will launch Mengzhou-1, a new generation of manned spacecraft, in 2026. The inaugural flight will be aboard the Long March-10A carrier rocket, departing from the Wenchang Space Launch Center, in Hainan province, southern China.
The new ship represents an evolution of the current Shenzhou, adopting a modular design consisting of a return capsule and a service capsule. The main function will be to provide transportation between Earth and the space station in China.
China will also launch the Shenzhou-22 and Shenzhou-23 manned spacecraft later this year from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the northwest of the country. Each of them will carry 3 astronauts.
Shenzhou-22 will dock at the radial port of the space station’s core module, while Shenzhou-23 will dock at the front port. One of the astronauts from the Shenzhou-22 mission will remain in orbit for more than 1 year, in a long-term residence experiment.
By 2026, in addition to Mengzhou-1, China plans to send the Tianzhou-10 cargo ship, which will dock at the rear port of the space station’s central module. This capsule will deliver crew supplies, suits, maintenance parts and propellant to keep the station operational. It will also transport samples from experiments for scientific projects. Upon re-entering the atmosphere, the cargo ship will dispose of waste from the space station.
