China has successfully launched its second crew of three astronauts to its new Tianhe space station. The taikonaut Wang Yaping, who will spend six months on board with her male colleagues Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu, will also become the first Chinese woman to perform a spacewalk.
The Shenzhou 13 capsule was successfully launched from the Jiuquan Center in the Gobi Desert this Friday at 6:23 p.m. (French time), capped above a Long March 2F rocket. The craft is expected to dock at Tianhe Station approximately eight hours later. Shenzhou 13 will dock at port nadir, which faces the Earth. This means that the capsule will have to approach its module from a direction perpendicular to the Earth (radial rendezvous maneuver or R-bar).
A new crew of three taikonauts will be on board:Wang Yaping (41 years old), Zhai Zhigang (55 years old) and Ye Guangfu (41 years old). All of them will stay about six months on board . For information, this was the back-up team for the Shenzhou 12 mission which returned to Earth last month after three months in orbit.
Questioned this Thursday from the Jiuquan launch center, Wang Yaping pointed out that the crew would once again give a lecture from orbit to Chinese students as was the case during from the previous mission.
The astronaut also touched on safety procedures. In the event of a serious problem with the Shenzhou 13 spacecraft, Chinese authorities plan an emergency launch of another escape pod to bring the astronauts back in a timely manner.
During their stay, between station maintenance work and performing a number of experiments in aerospace medicine and microgravity physics, the trio will perform two to three spacewalks aimed at installing robotic arms. Wang Yaping, the second Chinese to have stayed in space as part of the Shenzhou 10 mission launched in 2013, is expected to lead one of these outings. This will be a first for a Chinese astronaut.
Shenzhou 13 will be the Chinese space agency's last major mission this year. Six more are planned next year to complete construction of the station. When completed, the structure will be about a quarter the size of the ISS . On board, the astronauts will conduct various scientific experiments and prepare for long-duration flights in space . It is also not excluded that a European astronaut could one day also integrate it.
