On May 30, at 9:31 a.m. Beijing time, China launched the Shenzhou-16 spacecraft to the Tiangong Space Station. At a press conference on May 29, the three taikonauts were presented to the public. The construction phase of the Chinese Space Station is now officially completed and the three taikonauts who will fly there will begin the phase of development and space applications, said Lin Xichang, Deputy Director of the China Manned Space Agency. For the first time, they are also sending a civilian payload expert, Professor Gui Haichao, from Beihang University. Shenzhou-16 will be commanded by the 57-year old Jing Haipeng, a veteran of the first batch of taikonauts selected in 1998. This will be Jing’s fourth trip to space, the most for any Chinese taikonaut. Gui, and space engineer Zhu Hangzhu, are members of the third batch of taikonauts, which has now completed its training. The fourth batch has also been chosen and will begin training soon.
This is the first mission with three types of astronauts, a commander, a space engineer, and a payload specialist. Questions were raised about their age differences. Jing said that the three had worked closely together now for a year in training for this mission. “We are like a family,” he said. “In this case, one plus one plus one equals one.”
The crew will install electric propulsion cylinders and lift extravehicular cameras. The installation of large extravehicular application facilities, such as radiation biological exposure experiment devices and general test equipment, will also be completed.
