China Set to Launch First Crew to Its New Space Station

China ’s first crew mission to its new space place is scheduled to boom off tomorrow daybreak from a launchpad at the Jiuquan Space Launch Center in the Gobi Desert . The mission will be China ’s farseeing crew missionary station to escort .

The three - individual gang will found to the new space post , called Tiangong , in a foresighted March-2f rocket at 9:22 a.m. local clock time , according to the China Manned Space Agency asreported by AFP . They ’re heading for the 55 - foot - long core module of the space station , called Tianhe , which waslaunched in April . The launchcaused a splash last monthwhen the skyrocket that gestate the module made an uncontrolled atmospheric reentry .

After Tianhe break up — the first of 11 planned launching to make out the raw space station — China launched nearly seven tons of cargo to the orb station , Space News reported . Those goodness were deliver in anticipation of tomorrow ’s Modern arrivals , as the crew is expected to stay at the station for three months and will need various thing to keep them busy and sizable . allot to the Chinese outer space agency , the astronauts will have 120 unlike type of food as well as treadmills and stationary bicycles , which , as thisEuropean Space Agency videoshows , are fundamentally like the Earth interlingual rendition but with strap and bars to resist microgravity . Tianhe has a dining field , one lav , and separate living quarter for each astronaut .

Astronauts Tang Hongbo, Nie Haisheng, and Liu Boming will blast off tomorrow.

Astronauts Tang Hongbo, Nie Haisheng, and Liu Boming will blast off tomorrow.Photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images (Getty Images)

Though the three astronauts are heading to Tianhe tomorrow , the distance station is n’t expected to be fully useable until 2022 . Ji Qiming , the adjunct theater director general of the China Manned Space Agency , pronounce in apress conferencethat the astronauts — Nie Haisheng , Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo — will be completing extravehicular activities and working alongside the station ’s robotic arm , which the agency said will be used to assist set ballistic capsule to bob and decipherable nearby quad of junk . Though some American officialsexpressed concernsabout Tianhe ’s be after robotic sleeve , suggesting it could be used to disable orbiter , the International Space Station also has a robotic limb , whichwas recently damagedby a lump of space junk .

Tomorrow ’s launch will be the first of four design crew space flights out of the total 11 delegation the Formosan space way thinks it ’ll involve to fill in the Tiangong place by the oddment of next twelvemonth . The launching will also pit China ’s first crew mission in nearly five years and will be the longest amount of time any Taiwanese astronaut will delay in blank space .

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