Monitoring Desk
JIUQUAN: China’s Shenzhou-15 spaceship on Wednesday entered the country’s space station and the three astronauts aboard the spaceship met with the other three astronauts, a historic get together that increased the astronauts at the in-orbit space lab for the first time to six.
China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) stated that Shenzhou-15 was launched late on Tuesday night. The spaceship, Shenzhou-15, with the Long March-2F Y15 carrier rocket atop, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 11:08 pm according to Beijing Time.
China Realizes Historic Crew Gathering in Orbit
Around 10 minutes after the spaceship’s launch, Shenzhou-15 separated from the rocket and entered into the orbit.
Shenzhou-15, the manned spaceship atop the Long March-2F Y15 carrier rocket, blasts off from the Jiuquan
At 5:42 in the morning on Wednesday, the Shenzhou-15 spaceship carried out a fast automated rendezvous and docked with the Tianhe module space station’s front port. The space station was extended to its largest configuration with three spaceships and three modules, having a mass of nearly 100 tonnes in total.
At 7:33 in the morning, the commander of the spaceship crew, Chen Dong opened the hatch of Shenzhou-15. The three space station occupants welcomed Fei Junlong, Zhang Lu, and Deng Qingming and then captured a group picture.
CMSA said in a statement that the space reunion has started the first in-orbit crew rotation in the space history of China.
The Shenzhou-14 Spaceship Astronauts to Complete Work Handover in Five Days
The Shenzhou-14 spaceship astronauts, who have travelled to the space station in June this year, are planning to complete the work handover in-orbit in around five days, and then return back to the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of north China.
During the rotation of the two groups of the astronauts, they will complete a work handover concerning materials, the status of the space station combination and the experimental projects. Meanwhile, the Shenzhou-14 crew will continue to prepare for their return, said Ji Qiming, assistant to the CMSA director, at a press conference on Monday.
With six astronauts in orbit, it’s a challenge to allocate resources such as space, equipment and materials rationally for more efficient utilization, according to the China Astronaut Research and Training Center.
There are two sets of kitchen equipment in orbit, allowing the six to prepare a meal at the same time and share food with each other. In addition, two modules of the space station are equipped with two sanitary areas and six sleeping areas, all of which can be used independently, said the center.
The processing capacity of the environmental control and life support system will also be increased to meet the maximum demand from six people.
