CHINA plans to launch three astronauts to its Tiangong space station Friday night to conduct a crew rotation, according to the China Manned Space Agency. At a news conference Thursday morning at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Inner Mongolia, agency spokesman Zhang Jingbo announced that a Long March 2F carrier rocket is scheduled to lift off at 11:44 p.m. Friday from the Jiuquan spaceport. The rocket will carry the Shenzhou-21 crew, led by Senior Colonel Zhang Lu, to the Tiangong station. The station is currently manned by the Shenzhou-20 crew, who have been aboard for over six months. Zhang Jingbo, who is also a senior engineer at the space agency, stated that propellant fueling would begin at the service tower later Thursday, with other pre-launch preparations already underway. “After the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft enters its preset orbit, it will activate a rapid autonomous rendezvous-and-docking procedure,” he said. “The process to approach and connect with the front port of the Tianhe core module will take approximately three and a half hours.” The Shenzhou-21 crew is tasked with operating and maintaining the Tiangong station during their six-month mission. This mission will be Zhang Lu's second spaceflight, coming 29 months after his return from the Shenzhou-15 mission. For his two crewmates, Major Wu Fei (the spaceflight engineer) and payload specialist Zhang Hongzhang, it will be their debut spaceflight. Completed in late 2022, the Tiangong is the only space station currently in operation that is independently run by a single nation, orbiting Earth at an altitude of about 400 kilometers. The orbital outpost has been occupied by the Shenzhou-20 astronauts — mission commander Senior Colonel Chen Dong, Colonel Chen Zhongrui, and Colonel Wang Jie —since their arrival in late April. According to Zhang Jingbo, Chen Dong's team is scheduled to return to Earth after several days of handover activities with the incoming Shenzhou-21 crew. (SD-Agencies) | 