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Chinese
astronauts Jing Haipeng (L) and Chen Dong salute during the send-off ceremony
of the Shenzhou-11 manned space mission, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center
in north-western Gansu Province, on October 17, 2016 ©- (AFP)
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China launched two
astronauts into space on Monday, official media said, on a mission to its
orbiting laboratory as the country works towards setting up its own space
station.
AFP report continues:
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China's
Long March-2F carrier rocket transporting the manned spacecraft Shenzhou-11
blasts off from the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in
north-western Gansu Province, on October 17, 2016 ©- (AFP)
|
The
Shenzhou-11 spacecraft blasted off early in the morning from the Jiuquan
Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi desert, the official Xinhua news agency
reported.
Astronauts
Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong will take two days to reach the Tiangong-2 space
lab, or "Heavenly Palace-2", which was launched in September.
They
will remain on board for 30 days -- the longest stay thus far by Chinese
astronauts -- to conduct tests on spacecraft-related technologies and scientific
and engineering experiments, Xinhua said.
Jing,
the mission commander, was on his third trip into orbit and will celebrate his
50th birthday in space.
"Although
the job is challenging, risky and dangerous, there is nothing else I'd rather
do," he said, according to the China Daily.
China
is pouring billions into its military-run space programme and working to catch
up with the US and Europe, with hopes to have a crewed outpost by 2022.
Beijing
sees the programme as symbolizing the country's progress and a marker of its
rising global stature, but so far China has largely replicated activities that
the US and Soviet Union pioneered decades ago.
Chinese
President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory message to the mission on Monday,
urging them to aim at taking great leaps for the Chinese nation, Xinhua said.
The
mission should work to ensure "the Chinese people will take bigger steps
and march further" in space, and contribute "to the building of China
into a space power", Xinhua cited him as saying.
- 'Divine vessel' -
The
Tiangong-2 lab is in orbit 393 kilometres (244 miles) above Earth and has two
cabins -- an hermetically sealed experiment chamber that doubles as the living
quarters, and a resources store holding supplies such as solar panels, engines
and batteries.
Russian
space system design expert Aleksandr Zheleznyakov told Xinhua that the lab's
structure indicated China's design plans for its future space station, which he
expected would have a core cabin with multiple docks for different modules.
The
two astronauts on the Shenzhou-11 ("Divine Vessel") mission will test
their own health in zero gravity, cultivate rice samples, and conduct research
on cold atomic space clocks that use laser cooling technology to improve
accuracy, among other projects, China Daily said.
They
will be allowed a two-hour break every evening to watch movies, listen to music
and make video calls home, it added.
"We
prepared more than 100 kinds of food and beverages for them in space,"
deputy director of China's manned space engineering office Wu Ping told the
paper, adding that they had access to a treadmill and exercise bike.
Chen,
a 37-year-old from central Henan province with twin sons, idolized his older
colleague earlier in his own career.
"I used to watch Jing on television and he always seemed so far away," he said. "But when I met him in person, my worries and anxieties disappeared."
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