China will send its youngest-ever team of astronauts to the Tiangong space station this week as Beijing plans a manned mission to the moon by the end of this decade, officials said Wednesday. Tiangong is the crown jewel of Beijing’s space program, which has also landed robot rovers on Mars and the moon, making China the third country to put humans into orbit.

The station is staffed by groups of three astronauts that change every six months. The Shenzhou-17 module carrying the trio to the station is scheduled to lift off from the arid Jiuquan launch pad in northwestern China at 11:14 am (03:14 GMT) on Thursday.

“This is the crew of astronauts with the youngest average age since the launch of the space station construction mission,” the State Council Information Office in Beijing said in a statement. said.

The male trio will be led by Tang Hongbo, who is on the first return mission to the Tiangong Space Station.

“For the last two years, I have often dreamed of returning to space,” Tan said at a press conference on Wednesday. said.

“The space station is our other home, taking us from Earth to the universe,” he added.

He will be accompanied by Tang Shenji and Jiang Xinlin, both in their thirties and each making their first space travel. The average age of the crew was 38, compared to the 42-year-old crew of Shenzhou-16 at the time of launch.

“According to the plan, the Shenzhou-17 spacecraft will perform autonomous approach and docking procedures after entering orbit,” Lin Xiqiang, spokesman for China’s space program, said at a press conference on Wednesday morning.

He added that the procedure would connect to the station’s core module “about six and a half hours” after it was first initiated.

“Cosmic Dream”

Plans for China’s “space dream” were shelved under President Xi Jinping.

The world’s second-largest economy has poured billions of dollars into its military space program in a bid to catch up with the United States and Russia. In June, the Shenzhou-15 spacecraft’s return capsule touched down at a landing site in northern Inner Mongolia, with state media calling the mission a “complete success.”

The same month also launched the Shenzhou-16 capsule, which carried the first Chinese civilian into orbit, Beihang University professor Gui Haichao. The crew will return to Earth on Oct. 31 after the transfer is completed, officials said Wednesday.

Beijing also plans to send a crewed mission to the moon by 2030 and establish a base on the lunar surface. Spokesperson Lin reiterated the goal on Wednesday, saying “the goal of landing the Chinese on the moon by 2030 will be achieved on schedule.”

Monthly plans

The country’s lunar plans suffered a setback in 2017 when its powerful Long March-5 Y2 rocket failed to launch a mission to launch communications satellites into orbit. This led to the postponement of the launch of Chang’e-5, which was originally planned to collect lunar samples in the second half of 2017. Another robot, Chang’e-4, landed on the far side of the moon for the first time in history in January 2019.

Chang’e-5 eventually landed on the moon in 2020, hoisting the Chinese flag on the lunar surface and returning the first lunar samples to Earth in four decades.

And the last module of the T-shaped Tiangong, which means “heavenly palace”, was successfully docked with the main structure last year. The station is equipped with a wealth of advanced scientific equipment, including “the world’s first space-based cold atomic clock,” according to state news agency Xinhua.

Tiangong is expected to remain in low-Earth orbit 400 to 450 kilometers (250 to 280 miles) above the planet for at least 10 years.