New Chinese Space Station Crew On Its Way

China launched a new crew to the Tiangong-3 space station today. The three person — two men and a woman — Shenzhou-19 crew will replace the three taikonauts who have been aboard the space station since April.  Although China is years behind the United States and Russia in operating permanently occupied space stations, and Tiangong-3 is much smaller than the International Space Station, over the past two years they have settled into a similar crew-rotation regime allowing them to conduct scientific experiments and learn how humans adapt to long durations in weightlessness.

As usual, China did not confirm the launch date or publicly reveal the crew until early this morning Eastern Daylight Time.

The three crew members are Cai Xuzhe, Song Lingdong and Wang Haoze. Mission commander Cai is on his second flight, the other two are rookies. China’s Xinhua news agency said Wang is “currently China’s only female space flight engineer.” She’s the third Chinese woman to make a spaceflight. Liu Wang and Wang Yaping are the other two.

The three launched from the Jiuquan Space Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert atop a Long March 2F rocket on October 30 at 4:27 am Beijing Time (October 29, 4:27 am  Eastern Daylight Time). Commentators on China’s CGTN television service said they would dock by lunchtime. [Update: China apparently did not announce the docking time, but astrophysicst Jonathan McDowell posted on X (@planet4589) that it was 0300 UTC October 30, which was October 29, 11:00 pm EDT. China did publish a video, reposted on X by Wu Lei (@wulei2020), showing the two crews greeting each other that says hatch opening was at 12:51 pm, which presumably is Beijing time, or 04:51 UTC.]

The launch of the Shenzhou-19 crewed spaceship is a complete success, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA). #GLOBALink pic.twitter.com/BvEWXgqEuN

— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) October 29, 2024

Hugs, greetings and laughter, the #Shenzhou19 crew received a warm welcome from the #Shenzhou18 crew members at the China Space Station on October 30.

The two teams will spend a few days together to handover before the Shenzhou-18 crew returns to Earth on November 4. pic.twitter.com/3EaCIhDs1Y

— Wu Lei (@wulei2020) October 30, 2024

China provides few details about what their crews do while aboard Tiangong-3 other than generically they conduct  scientific experiments and maintainance activities, including spacewalks.

Today Xinhua said this crew will conduct 86 space science and technology experiments in fields including space life science, fundamental physics in microgravity, material science, space medicine and space technologies.

China began regular crew rotations two years ago.  Tianzhou cargo ships resupply the space station crews and China is looking for ways to reduce transportation costs. After a competitive selection process involving scientific institutes and commercial companies, two organizations were recently chosen to develop new systems — the Innovation Academy for Microsatellites of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Chengdu Aircraft Design and Research Institute of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China.

 

This article has been updated.