China prepares to conquer the Moon: A new crew takes off for its space station

berry/AFP

Beijing is preparing to conquer the Moon by 2030. Three new astronauts are heading this Wednesday, October 30, 2024 to the Tiangong space station. A female engineer, the third Chinese woman to go into space, is among the crew. The goal of their mission is to strengthen China's experience in orbit to achieve Beijing's short-term goal of building an international scientific research base on the moon by around 2035.  

A manager and an engineer among the crew   

This is the 19th Shenzhou mission (Divine Ship, Editor's note) since 1999. The last one, Shenzhou 18, was launched last April and the ship, still in orbit, is docked with the Tiangong space station. These missions include both manned and unmanned flights and the first manned flight was Shenzhou 5 in 2003, which made China the third country capable of independent manned spaceflight. 

Cai Xuzhe, 48, is one of the taikonauts of this crew. He took part in the Shenzhou-14 mission in 2022. This former pilot of the Chinese Air Force will be accompanied by a current pilot and lieutenant colonel, Song Lingdong, as well as an engineer, Wang Haoze, the third Chinese woman to go into space. This is the first mission for the latter two, who were born in the 1990s. 

The three taikonauts will be welcomed in the Tiangong station (Celestial Palace, editor's note) by their colleagues from the previous mission, Shenzhou-18, which was put into orbit last April and whose occupants will land in the coming days. The new crew will have to stay in the orbital laboratory for a period of about 6 months, that is to say until the end of April or the beginning of May.  

Its main objective is to conduct scientific experiments, particularly tests on bricks made from materials imitating lunar soil, which will be delivered by the Tianzhou-8 cargo ship in November. These bricks will be tested in space to assess their resistance to extreme conditions such as exposure to radiation, gravity or extreme temperatures, and to determine whether or not lunar soil can be a suitable material for building habitats on Earth's only natural satellite. 

A research base at the dawn of 2035   

This is one of the main goals of the Chinese space program. While the Shenzhou-19 mission aims to gain experience for future lunar missions planned for around 2030 and to maintain a continuous presence in the Tiangong station, Beijing ultimately wants to send a crew to the Moon and build an international scientific research base there around 2035.  

Beijing hopes to be able to use lunar soil to build the future base, given the high cost of transport to space, CCTV explains. The Middle Kingdom is also considering betting for another ten years on its Tiangong station, officially called CSS for “Chinese Space Station”, which is the size of the former Soviet Mir station but smaller than the International Space Station (ISS), still served by Russian Soyuz capsules and set to disappear, in favor of private or national stations.

With billions of euros, Beijing has been developing its space programs for three decades to catch up with the United States and its Artemis program, Europe, and Russia, which plans to launch its own station, called ROSS (Russian Orbital Service Station), by 2030. In 2019, China achieved a world first by landing a spacecraft, namely the Chang'e-4 probe, on the far side of the moon. Two years later, a robot landed on Mars.  

So many events that have allowed the Asian giant to considerably reduce the American advantage acquired thanks to their historical experience. 

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