China sent a new crew to the Tiangong space station on Thursday as part of the latest mission of its growing space program that plans to send humans to the moon by 2030. Shenzhou-17 took off from the Jiuquan Cosmodrome in northwestern China at 11:14 am (03:14 GMT), carrying a crew of three astronauts whose average age was the youngest since the space station was built.

At the farewell ceremony, hundreds of supporters waving the Chinese national flag and holding yellow flowers applauded the three astronauts in white and blue spacesuits as they were introduced to the crowd. The patriotic song “Praise to the Motherland” was sung as the space travelers slowly walked down a short walkway through the crowd, smiling and waving before boarding the bus to the launch site.

The crew is led by Tang Hongbo, who is on the first return mission to the space station. He is accompanied by Tang Shenji and Jiang Xinlin, both in their thirties and each making their first space journey. The all-male crew was the youngest crew ever to serve the space station, with an average age of 38.

They will “conduct various space science and application tests and experiments in orbit,” Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the China Manned Space Agency, said on Wednesday.

He also said they would be doing some maintenance work on the station to fix some “minor damage” from space debris.

“We found that the space station’s solar wings were hit several times by small cosmic particles,” Lin explained.

Gobi’s launch

Members of the previous Shenzhou-16 crew, who have been in Tiangong for about five months, are preparing to welcome the trio before they return to Earth next week. Hundreds of spectators gathered in front of the rocket launcher at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi desert on Thursday morning; some wore the blue uniforms of the Chinese space agency.

As the countdown began over the loudspeaker and the rocket lifted off, excitement rose in the crowd until the increasingly loud sound of the engines drowned out the applause, sending clouds of smoke onto the launch pad and into the dry, flat desert surrounding the site. The live feed showed the crew on the space station watching them ascend in anticipation of their arrival.

After the rocket remained aloft for about 15 minutes, a representative from the space program declared the launch a “complete success.” Tiangong, the crown jewel of Beijing’s space program, is staffed by three rotating astronauts at all times.

space 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 saw the launch of the Shenzhou-16 capsule, which placed the first Chinese civilian, Beihang University professor Gui Haichao, into orbit.

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. Deputy director Lin reiterated that goal on Wednesday, saying “the goal of landing the Chinese on the moon by 2030 will be achieved on schedule.” Source