China is preparing to launch a new three-person mission to complete work on its permanent orbiting space station, the China Manned Space Agency said Saturday.
June 4, 2022
China is preparing to launch a new three-person mission to complete work on its permanent orbiting space station, the China Manned Space Agency said Saturday. The Shenzhou 14 crew will spend six months on the Tiangong station, during which they will oversee the addition of two laboratory modules to join the main Tianhe living space that was launched in April 2021. Their spaceship is due to blast off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert at 10:44 a.m. Sunday (0244 GMT), the agency said. The crewed space flight program’s workhorse Long March 2F rocket will provide propulsion. Commander Chen Dong and fellow astronauts Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe will assemble the three-module structure joining the existing Tianhe with Wentian and Mengtian, due to arrive in July and October.
