Today, China will send another trio of astronauts to the Tiangong space station

China’s Tianjin Space Station was fully completed at the end of 2022 and has been permanently inhabited for some time. It is currently home to the three Chinese astronauts of the Shenzhou 17 mission, who will soon complete their six-month stay on the station and fly to Earth. The three-member crew of Shenzhou 18 will launch today one minute before 3:00 p.m. CET on the Long March rocket and should arrive at the station seven hours later.

The crew will consist of mission commander Ye Guangfu, Li Cong and Li Guangsu. Gungfu will look at the space station for the second time – he first flew to it in 2022 as part of the Shenzhou 13 mission, when the station was not yet completed. For the other two astronauts, this flight will be the first in space. If you are interested in the launch from China’s Jiuquan Cosmodrome, you can watch the live broadcast starting 15 minutes before noon.

According to space.com, this mission will be the seventh overall to fly to Tianjin. The Shenzhou 17 crew is already waiting for them at the station, which will hand over command to the trio in a few days and then fly back to Earth. The new crew will spend half a year in orbit, during which spacewalks are also planned to improve the station.

Tien-kung currently consists of three modules – the basic Tianhe, to which Wentian and Mengtian are attached. But China is planning to expand the entire station so that it can be permanently inhabited by more people at once and at the same time so that it can also be used for commercial purposes. The operation of the station is currently estimated for more than 15 years, but the Chinese Space Agency has not stated when the next module should be connected.