The Shenzhou-16 crew will replace three taikonauts who are wrapping up a six-month stay aboard the Chinese space station.
China launched a fresh three-man crew to the Tiangong space station Tuesday evening (U.S. time) to replace three fellow „taikonauts“ wrapping up a six-month stay in space. It is the second such crew handover since the Chinese established a permanent presence aboard the lab last June.
With veteran commander Jing Haipeng, 56, at the controls, flanked by Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao, the first non-military taikonaut, or astronaut, the Shenzhou-16 crew blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center atop a Long March 2F rocket at 9:31 p.m. EDT (9:31 a.m. Tuesday local time).
Jing is the first Chinese flier to make four trips to space while Gui, a professor at Beijing University with a doctorate in astronautics, is the first civilian taikonaut to reach orbit and the first to visit the Chinese space station.
The launching, China’s fifth piloted flight to Tiangong and its third since around-the-clock staffing began last June, was carried live on Chinese television, providing spectacular shots of the rocket’s climb to space and interior views of the taikonauts as they calmly monitored cockpit displays.
The 191-foot-tall Long March 2F rocket, equipped with four strap-on boosters for extra power, reached its planned preliminary orbit about 10 minutes after liftoff and promptly released the Shenzhou-16 ferry ship to fly on its own.
