China Announces Launch Time, Crew, for Tomorrow's Space Station Mission
China today announced the liftoff time for the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft launch tomorrow, June 16, 2012. Shenzhou-9 will carry the first Chinese space station crew to the Tiangong-1 space station, already in orbit. The crew includes the first Chinese woman astronaut.
The launch will take place at 18:37 Beijing time, which is 10:37 GMT or 6:37 am Eastern Daylight Time. The crew is Jing Haipeng, Liu Wang and Liu Yang. Liu Yang is the first Chinese woman to be launched into space.
The crew was introduced to the public at a Chinese press conference. The video is on CCTV. It is in Chinese with simultaneous translation into English.
Jing is the commander of the mission. He flew on the Shenzhou 7 mission in 2007. Liu Wang, 42, will be in charge of the manual docking. Liu Yang, born in 1978, will be in charge of medical experiments.
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