{"id":690003,"date":"2026-05-24T05:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T05:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/690003\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T05:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T05:26:09","slug":"china-to-send-astronaut-on-year-long-space-mission-as-it-targets-2030-moon-landing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/690003\/","title":{"rendered":"China to send astronaut on year-long space mission as it targets 2030 moon landing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Astronauts Zhu Yangzhu, Zhang Yuanzhi and Li Jiaying attend a press conference on the eve of the Shenzhou-23 spaceflight mission to China’s Tiangong space station.Maxim Shemetov\/Reuters<\/p>\n

China will send an astronaut to its space station on Sunday for a year, a record length for the country, enabling the study of long-duration human physiology in space as Beijing works towards its ambition of a crewed moon landing by 2030.<\/p>\n

The Shenzhou-23 vessel is scheduled to launch at 11:08 p.m. local time using the Long March-2F Y23 carrier rocket from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, with three Chinese astronauts on board.<\/p>\n

Payload specialist Li Jiaying, a former Hong Kong police inspector, will be the first astronaut from the city to take part in a Chinese space mission. The other crew members are commander Zhu Yangzhu and pilot Zhang Yuanzhi, both from the People\u2019s Liberation Army\u2019s astronaut division.<\/p>\n

China, U.S. set sights on moon<\/p>\n

One of the three is to stay on the Tiangong space station for a year, one of the longest space missions ever but short of the 14-1\/2 month record set by a Russian cosmonaut in 1995. That astronaut will be decided later, depending on the progress of the mission, the China Manned Space Agency said on Saturday.<\/p>\n

China has sent astronauts to its space station almost a dozen times, but this launch comes amid an accelerating race to the moon with the U.S., which has warned about what it alleges are Beijing\u2019s plans to colonize and mine lunar territory and resources.<\/p>\n

Beijing has strongly rejected these claims.<\/p>\n

NASA is seeking to achieve a crewed moon landing in 2028, two years ahead of China. The U.S. aims to establish a long-term lunar presence as a stepping stone to eventual human exploration of Mars.<\/p>\n

In April, four NASA astronauts, including Canadian mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, made a historic trip around the moon as part of the Artemis II mission, flying farther from Earth than anyone before in the world\u2019s first crewed lunar mission in half a century.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX made a largely successful, uncrewed test flight of its next-generation Starship rocket, which is designed to enable more frequent Starlink satellite launches and to send future NASA missions to the moon.<\/p>\n

China, with less than four years until its 2030 deadline, faces a tall order of developing entirely new hardware and software specific to its lunar mission, proving it is mission-ready. That will ensure its astronauts, used to the relative safety of Tiangong in low-Earth orbit, can safely make the riskier transition to the moon\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s Shenzhou missions have been sending trios of astronauts to the station for six-month stays since 2021. The Chinese space agency is training two Pakistani astronauts, one of whom could join an expected mission to Tiangong this year on a short-duration basis.<\/p>\n

Goal of permanent lunar base by 2035<\/p>\n

The previous mission, Shenzhou-22, was launched ahead of schedule in November to return three Chinese astronauts to Earth after their Shenzhou-20 vessel was damaged by space debris in orbit.<\/p>\n

China has only sent robots to the moon, but its successive Shenzhou missions highlight the country\u2019s rapidly improving space capabilities. In June, 2024, China became the first country to recover lunar samples from the moon\u2019s far side, using robots.<\/p>\n

A successful crewed landing before 2030 would boost China\u2019s plans to establish a permanent base on the moon by 2035 with Russia.<\/p>\n

The Chinese lunar program\u2019s chief scientist, Wu Weiren, has said Beijing\u2019s public timeline is intentionally conservative.<\/p>\n

Over the past year, Beijing has been carrying out safety tests of hardware developed for the 2030 mission, including heavy-lift Long March-10 rockets, the Mengzhou spacecraft and the Lanyue lunar lander.<\/p>\n

The Shenzhou-23 flight will execute the first autonomous rapid rendezvous and docking procedure with the core module of Tiangong in preparation for the 2030 mission, which hinges on an automated lunar-orbit rendezvous between the Mengzhou capsule and the Lanyue lander.<\/p>\n

Scientists will also study the physiological effects of radiation exposure, bone density loss and psychological stress in space for the extended duration of the Shenzhou-23 mission.<\/p>\n

Beijing is conducting the world\u2019s first human \u201cartificial embryo\u201d experiment in space, having sent samples of human stem cells to the Shenzhou-22 crew on the Tiangong this month, state media reported. The experiment is intended to study the long-term residence, survival and reproduction of human beings in space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Astronauts Zhu Yangzhu, Zhang Yuanzhi and Li Jiaying attend a press conference on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,66,306,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-690003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-science","tag-space","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}