{"id":263447,"date":"2025-10-31T19:32:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T19:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/263447\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T19:32:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T19:32:10","slug":"chinas-shenzhou-21-spaceship-successfully-launches-with-astronauts-and-mice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/263447\/","title":{"rendered":"China’s Shenzhou-21 spaceship successfully launches with astronauts and mice"},"content":{"rendered":"

JIUQUAN, China (AP) \u2014 China said Saturday that it successfully launched the Shenzhou-21 spaceship on a mission to the country\u2019s orbiting space station<\/a>, sending its newest rotation of three astronauts \u2014 along with four mice.<\/p>\n

The Shenzhou-21 spaceship took off as planned at 11:44 p.m. local time Friday from the Jiuquan launch center in northwestern China. <\/p>\n

The crew includes pilot and mission commander Zhang Lu, who also was on the Shenzhou-15 mission to the space station two years ago.<\/p>\n

The other two are flying for the first time. Wu Fei, 32, an engineer, is the country\u2019s youngest astronaut to join a spaceflight. Zhang Hongzhang is a payload specialist who was a researcher focusing on new energy and new materials before becoming an astronaut.<\/p>\n

Zhang said the team would turn the space station into a \u201cutopia\u201d by doing tai-chi, gardening and appreciating poetry on the Tiangong space station. Like those before them, they will stay at the station for roughly six months.<\/p>\n

While in space, the astronauts planned to conduct 27 scientific and applied projects in biotechnology, aerospace medicine, materials science and other areas.<\/p>\n

For the first time, China is sending mice to its space station. The two males and two females will be monitored to study how weightlessness and confinement affect their behavioral patterns, said Han Pei, an engineer at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Stay up to date with the news and the best of AP by following our WhatsApp channel.<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n \tFollow on
\n \t\t\"WhatsApp\"\/
\n \t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis will help us master key technologies for the breeding and monitoring of small mammals in space and make a preliminary assessment of the mice\u2019s emergency responses and adaptive changes in space environments,\u201d Han said.<\/p>\n

The \u201cspace mice\u201d were selected from 300 candidates after more than 60 days of intensive training, according to China\u2019s official Xinhua News Agency. State media China National Radio reported that the mice are expected to stay five to seven days in the space station and hitch a ride in Shenzhou-20 coming back to Earth.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s space program<\/a> is a source of enormous national pride and a hallmark of the nation\u2019s technological advances over the past two decades. China launched its first crewed mission in 2003, becoming only the third nation to do so after the former Soviet Union and the United States.<\/p>\n

Zhang Jingbo, a spokesperson for the China Manned Space Agency, said the research and development work is progressing smoothly for the agency\u2019s plans to send an astronaut to the moon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur fixed goal of China landing a person on the moon by 2030 is firm,\u201d Zhang said at a news conference a day ahead of the launch.<\/p>\n

The Tiangong, or \u201cHeavenly Palace,\u201d space station has helped make China a major player in space. It was entirely Chinese-built after the country was excluded<\/a> from the International Space Station over U.S. national security concerns. China\u2019s space program is controlled by the People\u2019s Liberation Army, the military branch of the ruling Communist Party.<\/p>\n

In a collaboration with Pakistan, China is in the process of choosing two Pakistani astronauts to come to China for training. The space agency\u2019s plan is to send one of them on a short-term mission as a payload expert, in what would be the first visit to the space station by a foreign astronaut.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Fu Ting reported from Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JIUQUAN, China (AP) \u2014 China said Saturday that it successfully launched the Shenzhou-21 spaceship on a mission to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[1204,144,793,79,193,9175,9179,74,965],"class_list":{"0":"post-263447","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-asia-pacific","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-general-news","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space","13":"tag-space-exploration","14":"tag-space-launches","15":"tag-technology","16":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}