China plans to build the space station around 2022, during which it will launch four Shenzhou manned spacecraft. Currently, the crew for the mission has been selected and mission training is underway.
At the press conference of the first mission of the Long March 5B carrier rocket held on the evening of May 5, Ji Qiming, assistant to the director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office, revealed the above information.
That evening, the first mission of Long March 5B was a complete success, which kicked off the in-orbit construction phase of the Chinese space station and laid a solid foundation for the subsequent launch of the core module and experimental module of the space station.
The construction of the Chinese space station is planned to be completed around 2022, with a total of 12 missions planned.
Ji Qiming said that the mission would be followed by the launch of the Tianhe Module, the Wentian Experiment Module and the Mengtian Experiment Module, and the construction of the basic configuration of the space station in orbit.
In the meantime, four Shenzhou manned spacecraft and four Tianzhou cargo spacecraft are planned to be launched for crew rotation and cargo replenishment.
At present, the core module of the China Space Station has completed the assembly of prototype products, the first prototypes of the Wentian and Mengtian Experiment Modules are being developed, and the space science applied payloads have been transferred to prototype development one after another.
Ji Qiming said, "The crew of astronauts to perform four missions during the construction phase of the space station has been selected and is conducting mission training."
Ji Qiming introduced that the selection of China's third batch of reserve astronauts will also be completed by the middle of this year.
The Long March 5B carrier rocket was developed on the basis of the Long March 5 carrier rocket and is mainly used for major space missions such as the launch of the module of the Chinese space station, with a carrying capacity of more than 22 tons in near-Earth orbit, which is currently the largest carrier rocket in China.
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