China launches Shenzhou 21 mission, with 3 taikonauts and 4 mice to replace the space station crew

Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center: China launched its Shenzhou-21 spacecraft on Friday, bringing a new crew of three to man the country’s Tiangong space station on a mission focused on scientific research. The replacement crew includes China’s youngest taikonaut (as China’s space program calls its astronauts) and, for the first time since Beijing launched its program, will also include live mammals.

Shenzhou-21 and its crew lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China atop a Long March-2F rocket just before midnight Friday, or around 11 a.m. Eastern Time.

The taikonauts on board (Zhang Lu, Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang) will rotate so that the trio currently aboard the Chinese space station Shenzhou-20 mission, which launched on April 24, can return home after six months in space. The exact date of his return has not yet been announced.

The Shenzhou-21 crew plans to carry out a total of 27 scientific and applied research projects during its mission, focusing on multiple fields, including space life sciences, biotechnology, space medicine, space materials science, microgravity fluid physics and combustion, and new space technologies, according to information provided by the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

Along with the taikonauts, Shenzhou-21 carries four mice (two females and two males), the first living mammals ever taken by China into space. Two previous missions to Tiangong Station transported live fish.

Taikonauts will study the effects of microgravity and confined space conditions on the behavioral patterns of mice.

The Shenzhou-21 crew, with Lu as commander, is scheduled to live aboard the space station for about six months, like the crew they are replacing.

It won’t be the first visit to the station for Lu, who previously served on the Shenzhou-15 mission.

The other two crew members are making their first space flight, and flight engineer Wu, born in 1993, will be the youngest taikonaut ever sent into space by his nation.

“I feel incomparably lucky,” he told reporters Thursday. “Being able to integrate my personal dreams into the glorious journey of China’s space program is the greatest fortune this era has bestowed upon me.”

Crowds gathered around the Jiuquan launch site on Friday before the countdown, and a man who identified himself to News themezone only as Mr. Zhao said he was “very excited” to be there with his 7-year-old son, “hoping to plant the seed of a space dream in his heart.”

China’s growing “space dream”

China has unilaterally stepped up its space program since it was excluded from the International Space Station project (largely due to US government concerns about the Chinese military’s complete control over its program) to achieve its “space dream” under President Xi Jinping.

It has crewed the Tiangong station since 2021 and there are now plans to bring the first non-Chinese crew member aboard the facility.

China will arrange for a Pakistani citizen to undertake a short-term space mission in the future, the CMSA said, following the signing of a cooperation agreement between the two countries in February.

The process of selecting a Pakistani national for training has already begun, along with planning training programs and preparing logistical support for the Pakistanis under consideration.

Following the selection process, two Pakistani nationals will travel to China to train alongside Chinese taikonauts for future missions, the CMSA said.

CMSA spokesman Zhang Jingbo said during a news conference this week ahead of Shenzhou-21’s launch that China would welcome international partners to participate in missions aboard its space station.

The work done on China’s space station coincides with and often complements the country’s efforts to be the first to land a person on the surface of the Moon in more than 40 years. Chinese officials have set a public goal of landing taikonauts on the surface of the Moon by 2030 and eventually building a lunar base.

China has already put unmanned probes on the moon, including the first to land and collect samples from the opposite side of the celestial body just last year.

“Overall, research and construction have proceeded smoothly, and China aims to achieve the goal of landing Chinese astronauts on the moon by 2030,” Zhang said this week ahead of the impending Shenzhou launch, indicating that the CMSA remains on track to meet its lunar goals.