Shenzhou-16 Spaceship Launched Successfully! Next Stop: Moon Landing!

At 9:31 on May 30, 2023, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China, the Shenzhou-16 spaceship carrying three astronauts—Jing Haipeng, Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao—was successfully launched into the sky by the "Divine Arrow" Long March-2F rocket, heading straight for the Tiangong Space Station. This mission will adopt the autonomous and fast rendezvous and docking mode as usual, and the spaceship will enter the space station in about 7 hours. The Shenzhou-16 manned spaceship has successfully separated from the rocket and entered the preset orbit. The astronaut crew is in good condition, and the launch is a complete success. We look forward to the second space rendezvous at China's Tiangong Space Station. Veterans and Newcomers: An Extraordinary Astronaut Team The biggest highlight of this mission is undoubtedly the astronaut crew. Jing Haipeng, born in 1966, serves as the commander of the crew and is embarking on his fourth space flight mission. He has successfully completed the Shenzhou-7 (2008), Shenzhou-9 (2012) and Shenzhou-11 (2016) missions, making him the most experienced astronaut of China's first batch of astronauts with the most space flight missions under his belt. Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao are on their maiden space flight. Both rookies began their studies in aerospace-related majors at university in 2005 and were selected as part of China's third batch of astronauts in September 2020. Notably, Zhu Yangzhu is a space flight engineer and Gui Haichao a payload specialist (click here to learn more about payload specialists)—these two roles are appearing for the first time in China's manned space missions. It can be said that during the prime time of their academic and professional careers, Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao have grown together with China's manned space program, turning their dreams into reality step by step and becoming heroes who conquer the space. With the "mentor-apprentice" crew arrangement in multiple batches of the manned space program, more new astronauts will travel to space and gradually take on the mantle of China's manned space cause. Manned Spaceflight Enters a New Stage The emergence of astronauts in new roles is an important symbol of China's manned spaceflight entering a new stage. To this day, only China, the United States and Russia possess independent manned spaceflight capabilities in the world. Since the completion of the Tiangong Space Station in 2022, China's manned space program has officially entered the stage of application and development. The fundamental goal of developing the manned space program is still to conduct scientific research, turning the Tiangong Space Station into a national laboratory and seizing more "pearls on the crown" of industrial civilization. In other words, "We planted trees before, and now we can enjoy the shade". The foundation of manned spaceflight capabilities built over 30 years is now set to be transformed into advanced aerospace technologies to boost scientific and technological development in various fields. Therefore, professional astronauts were mainly needed to be responsible for technical verification and space station construction in previous missions, while the current space station requires engineers and scientists to achieve greater scientific research output. Among the third batch of astronauts announced so far, there are 7 space pilots, 7 flight engineers and 4 payload specialists. These new forces will propel the manned space program to new heights. In the foreseeable future, the number of flight engineers and payload specialists will increase rapidly. Can Astronauts Wear Glasses in Space? After the astronaut crew was unveiled on May 29, one of the most discussed topics online was Gui Haichao, "the astronaut who wears glasses". He is a professor and doctoral supervisor at Beihang University, and also the first payload specialist who is not a professional astronaut. As the name suggests, the main responsibility of such astronauts is to operate space science experiment payloads, making them scientists "flying in space". This astronaut, a rising academic star in the field of aerospace research and a rookie in this launch mission, has greatly inspired numerous netizens who wear glasses. In the traditional astronaut selection, visual acuity requirements were an extremely high threshold, which made many netizens with dreams of flying to space regretfully give up. Because during the technical verification stage of manned spaceflight, astronaut training, launch and mission execution indeed had extremely high physical requirements for astronauts, and visual acuity was a crucial indicator. However, with the accumulation of technology and experience, the level of astronaut life support has improved rapidly, and the comfort and safety of rockets, spaceships and the space station have been greatly enhanced. Under such circumstances, the service age of astronauts has been gradually extended, the physical requirements for serving astronauts have been lowered, and the standards for recruiting new astronauts have also been relaxed. At the same time, the number, difficulty and professionalism of scientific research projects to be completed in space have increased significantly. At present, the Tiangong Space Station is equipped with a large scientific experiment cabinet system (how are the experiment cabinets made?), and the Tianzhou cargo spaceships are continuously delivering various scientific payloads inside and outside the space station module. In the future, the space station will also fly in the same orbit as the Xuntian Space Telescope... These scientific missions are destined to require more payload specialists to be stationed in the space station. Compared with correctable visual acuity, their brains full of scientific creativity are the key to the missions. Therefore, as early as the recruitment stage of the third batch of astronauts, China no longer regards uncorrected visual acuity as a mandatory selection threshold. So for friends who wear glasses, keep developing your professional research capabilities—maybe one day you can go to space as a payload specialist. Next Stop: Manned Moon Landing The aerospace age of humanity has just begun. At present, manned spaceflight is still carried out near the "cradle of humanity", and in the future, we are destined to leave this cradle to explore the almost infinite universe. In this era of great aerospace development, China has achieved a huge leap from "following others" to "keeping pace with others", and the next stop is to strive to "take the lead". The Moon is the ideal next stop. As the only natural satellite of the Earth, it is the best springboard for humanity to march into deep space, and also a spiritual sustenance of the Chinese culture embodied in the line "I raise my head and look at the bright moon". Through the Chang'e project, China has achieved a series of major technological breakthroughs such as orbiting, landing, roving and sample returning on the Moon, including the world's first soft landing on the far side of the Moon and the lunar sample return after 44 years. In the follow-up, Chang'e-6, Chang'e-7 and Chang'e-8 will conduct in-depth research on the Moon. It can be said that the time has come to consider manned moon landing! Just in the preparation stage of the Shenzhou-16 mission, the China Manned Space Engineering Office announced that the lunar landing phase of China's manned lunar exploration project has been launched and implemented, with the goal of realizing the first Chinese manned moon landing by 2030. Corresponding to this, the development of major supporting equipment such as a new generation of manned launch vehicles, new generation of manned spaceships, lunar landers and extravehicular suits for the moon landing is in full swing. With the further development of aerospace missions in the future, China's manned space program will not only need professional astronauts, but also more people from all walks of life to join in. The first Chinese person to set foot on the Moon in the future may be you, me or him who are watching the Shenzhou-16 mission right now. Are you ready?