Launch of Shenzhou-23 focuses on the study of prolonged microgravity and prepares the country for the lunar landing scheduled by 2030
China launches, this Sunday (24), its Shenzhou-23 missionin which an astronaut will spend a year in space for the first timea crucial step in its ambition to send humans to the Moon by 2030.
Thanks to massive investments, the Asian giant considerably developed its space program and now competes with the United States and its Artemis program to return to the lunar surface.
The mission is scheduled to begin at 11:08 pm (12:08 am Brasília time), when the Long Marcha 2F rocket takes off from the Jiuquan Space Center, located in the Gobi Desert, in northwest China.
The rocket will take Shenzhou spacecraft and their three crew to the Tiangong space station (“Heavenly Palace” in Chinese), where one of them will stay for a whole year.
This experiment will allow scientists study the effects of prolonged microgravityessential for potential future missions to the Moon or even Mars.
The mission will also mark the first space flight by a Hong Kong astronaut: Li Jiaying, 43, who previously worked for the police in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.
The other crew members are Commander Zhu Yangzhu, a 39-year-old aerospace engineer; and Zhang Zhiyuan, a former air force pilot of the same age who will travel to space for the first time.
In addition to the one-year orbital stay, the crew will carry out numerous experiments related to life sciences, of materials, fluid physics e medicine.
Muscle atrophy, radiation, fatigue…
The selection of the astronaut tasked with spending a year in orbit will take place later depending on the progress of the Shenzhou-23 mission, an official from the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said on Saturday.
The “main challenges” will be “the effects on humans”: “loss of bone density, muscular atrophy, exposure to radiation, sleep disorders and behavioral and psychological fatigue”, Richard de Grijs, astrophysicist and professor at the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at Macquarie University, in Australia, explained to AFP.
He also emphasized the importance of the reliability of water and air recycling systems, as well as the ability to manage potential medical emergencies far from Earth.
“China has become very competent in these areas, but duration is important. A year in orbit puts the equipment and crew in a different operational regime than the shorter Shenzhou missions”, highlighted De Grijs.
Until now, crews remained at Tiangong station for six months before being replaced.
‘Dreamship’
China is still in development phase e testing of necessary equipment to send astronauts to the Moon this decade.
This year, the test flight in orbit of the Mengzhou (“Dream Ship”) spacecraft. This spacecraft will replace Shenzhou on manned missions to the Moon.
Beijing hopes to build by 2035 the first segment of an inhabited scientific base on an Earth satellitecalled the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS).
The Asian giant invested billions of dollars over the past thirty years to bring its space program on par with those of the United States, Russia and Europe. Its progress has been particularly visible in the last decade.
In 2019, China landed a space probe on the far side of the Moon, an unprecedented achievement worldwide, and in 2021, it landed a small robot on Mars.
China was officially excluded from the International Space Station (ISS) in 2011, the year in which the United States banned its space agency, NASA, from collaborating with Beijing.
This led the Asian giant to develop its own space station project.
