China is about to send its first civilian astronaut into space.

The world's second-largest economy has invested billions of dollars in its military-run space program, trying to catch up with the US and Russia in the field. To date, all Chinese astronauts sent into space have been from the People's Liberation Army.

Astronauts come from "ordinary" backgrounds

Gui Haichao is a professor at Beijing's Beihang University and will manage scientific experiments on the station during the mission, China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) spokesman Lin Xiqiang told reporters on Monday.

Its mission will "perform large-scale experiments in orbit... in the study of novel quantum phenomena, high-precision space-time frequency systems, verification of general relativity, and the origin of life," Lin said.

Gui Haichao's university said he came from an "ordinary family" in southwestern China's Yunnan province. He "first felt the attraction of aerospace" when he heard news of China's first man in space, Yang Liwei, on the school's radio in 2003, the school said in a social media post.

Independent analyst Chen Lan said Gui's addition was "particularly important", given that previous missions had only carried astronauts trained as pilots responsible for more technical tasks, rather than specialist scientists.

“That means, from this mission onwards, China will open the door to space for ordinary people,” he said. Gui will lift off on the Shenzhou-16 spacecraft from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 9:31 a.m. local time Tuesday, according to CMSA.

The commander is Jing Haipeng - who is on his fourth space mission - and the third crew member is engineer Zhu Yangzhu. Jing said he had not been home for nearly four years because he was concerned that travel would disrupt his training.

"Space Dream"

Under President Xi Jinping, plans for China's "space dream" have been accelerated. China is planning to build a base on the moon. And CMSA spokesman Lin on Monday reaffirmed Beijing's plan to land a man on Earth's natural satellite by 2030.

“The overall goal is to achieve China's first manned landing on the Moon by 2030 and carry out scientific explorations on the Moon as well as related technological experiments,” he said.

The final module of the T-shaped Tiangong space station successfully docked with its core structure last year. The station houses a number of advanced scientific instruments, including the "world's first space-based cold atomic clock system," Xinhua reported.

Tiangong is expected to stay in low Earth orbit at an altitude of 400 to 450 kilometers above the planet for at least 10 years. It will be continuously operated by rotating teams of three Chinese astronauts.

While there are no plans to use Tiangong for global collaboration on the scale of the International Space Station, China has said it is open to foreign collaboration. China has been excluded from the International Space Station (ISS) since 2011, when the US banned NASA from participating with it.

Hoang Hai (according to Xinhua News Agency, AFP)

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