Youngest crew to fly to Tiangong station

The astronauts, with an average age of 38, will spend six months living and working on China's Tiangong space station.

The Shenzhou 17 spacecraft will take off on a Long March 2F rocket. Photo: Xinhua — The Shenzhou 17 spacecraft will take off on a Long March 2F rocket. Photo: *Xinhua*

Three former fighter pilots aged 33 to 48 from the Shenzhou 17 mission were introduced at a press conference on October 25. The Shenzhou 17 spacecraft is scheduled to launch at 11:14 a.m. local time on October 26 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. The spacecraft is scheduled to reach orbit after nearly seven hours before automatically docking with the Tiangong space station 380 kilometers above the Earth's surface. The three astronauts on board will be greeted by the Shenzhou 16 crew, who have been living on the station for nearly five months.

The Shenzhou 17 crew will be the third group to live and work on the Tiangong space station this year. They will stay until April next year, when the Shenzhou 18 crew arrives to take over the station. The mission commander is Tang Hongbo, 48, who was a member of the Shenzhou 12 mission in 2021, the first crew on the Tiangong space station. Tang is not only the first astronaut to live on the space station twice, but also holds the record for the shortest time between missions for a Chinese astronaut. Born in China's Hunan province, Tang joined the country's second batch of astronauts in 2010 after serving as a fighter pilot in the military.

Astronauts Tang Hongbo (center), Tang Shengjie (right) and Jiang Xinlin (left) will live on the Tiangong station until April next year. Photo: Xinhua — Astronauts Tang Hongbo (center), Tang Shengjie (right) and Jiang Xinlin (left) will live on the Tiangong station until April next year. Photo: *Xinhua*

Jiang Xinlin and Tang Shengjie, also a fighter pilot, are the other two members of the Shenzhou-17 mission. Tang Shengjie, 33, was selected as part of China's third batch of astronauts in 2020. As the first astronaut from China's northwestern Gansu province, he is also the youngest member of the crew. Jiang, 35, who also joined the space agency in 2020, is from central China's Henan province.

The most recent Shenzhou 16 mission marked the beginning of the “application and development” phase of China’s manned space program, which includes experiments, health monitoring, scientific education, and regularly scheduled station maintenance. The Shenzhou 17 crew will continue the work of the previous astronaut team with 70 experiments in the fields of space medicine, biotechnology, ecology, fluid physics, materials science, and more. They will also perform spacewalks and several cargo missions.

Maintenance of the space station will be a top priority. The station’s solar panels have some minor damage from a collision with a small piece of debris. The repairs will improve the station’s long-term operations. The new crew will conduct a maintenance test to repair the damage. The Shenzhou 16 crew will return to Earth on October 31. Before returning, they will attempt to take the first high-resolution image of the space station in its full configuration.

An Khang (According to SCMP )

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