Beijing, November 29 (BNA): China launched today, Tuesday, a rocket with three astronauts on board, to complete the construction of the permanent space station in China.
The Shenzhou-15 crew will overlap for several days with the 3-man crew already aboard Tiangong Station, who will then return to Earth after their six-month mission, according to the Associated Press.
Their spaceship exploded atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert at 11:08 p.m. Tuesday.
The six-month mission, led by Fei Junlong and crewed by Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu, will be the last in the construction phase of China’s space station, according to the Chinese manned space agency.
The 57-year-old Fei is a veteran of the 2005 Shenzhou 6 four-day mission, the second time China sent a person into space. Deng and Zhang make their first spaceflight.
The station’s third and final module docked earlier this month, one of the final steps in China’s more than a decade-long effort to maintain a permanent crew presence in orbit.
Ji said that after the Shenzhou-15 spacecraft makes automatic docking with the forward port of the base units in Tianhe, the station will be expanded to its maximum size, with three units and three spaceships with a total mass of nearly 100 tons.
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