In just a few time of day , three taikonauts ( space travelers ) will found from Earth to become the first gang to take residence in the Tiangong Space Station , whose chief core module Tianhe ( meaning “ Harmony of the promised land ” ) was establish less than two months ago .
Commander Nie Haisheng , with operators Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo , will depart the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northern China on display panel the Shenzhou 12 on June 17 at 01:12 UTC . The crew will make out some of the station meeting place as well as other crucial missions over a three - month stay , which is expected to also let in two spacewalks . This will be China ’s long crewed mission in scope to date and its first in almost five year since Taikonauts visit thepredecessorof the current Tiangong Space Station .
“ At present , the spacecraft and rockets are in good consideration , and the launch site facilities and equipment are in dear condition . The follow - up will carry out various pre - launch functional review and joint test as planned , ” read thepress passing , automatically render from Chinese .
If everything lead grant to architectural plan , three more crewed missions will take position between now and the end of twist await for 2022 . This will be the 2d launch to the raw space post after the Tianzhou 2 launching a hebdomad ago . Tianzhou 2 is part of China ’s resupply cargo fleet . It is currently unknown if the cargo craft will be divide during the hitch of the Shenzhou 12 gang or whether it will be separated in advance .
The full space place will be about one - fifth of the plenty equate to theInternational Space Stationand will revolve at a similar ALT of between 340 and 450 kilometre ( 210 and 280 mil ) . The ISS is kept at around 420 kilometers ( 260 miles).Two experiment moduleswill be launched next yr . The first one will be Wentian ( intend Quest for Heavens ) expected to launch around May – June 2022 , followed about three months later by Mengtian ( mean Dreaming of Heavens ) .
The latest addition will be a separate scope module call Xuntian ( whose real meaning is Touring the heavens ) . The scope is going to have a main mirror 2 meter ( 6.6 foot ) in diameter with a field of scene 300 multiplication tumid than veteran space scope Hubble . Over the ten - year primary mission , Xuntian is expected to figure 40 pct of the Sky with its 2.5 gigapixel camera .
Shenzou 13 with the next crew of taikonauts is expected to fly there in October , with the following crews launching in previous spring and late surrender of 2022 .
