BEIJING: China launched two men into orbit in a project designed to develop its ability to explore space on Monday.
The astronauts took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northern China. They will dock with the experimental Tiangong 2 space lab and spend 30 days there, the longest stay in space by Chinese astronauts. This and previous launches are seen as pointers to possible crewed missions to the Moon or Mars.
An earlier Tiangong – or Heavenly Palace – space station was decommissioned earlier this year after docking with three rockets. The astronauts on this latest mission were Jing Haipeng, 49, who has already been to space twice, and 37-year-old Chen Dong.
It will take the astronauts about two days to reach the orbiting laboratory where they will live for a month. They will spend this time analysing plant growth in space and giving themselves ultrasounds to scan their bodies’ performance. China can portray itself not only as a powerful nation, but one which is contributing to the body of knowledge.
Along the road into the launch centre are several huge billboards featuring President Xi Jinping giving himself a little clap as a “Long March” rocket sends yet another team into space. He knows that China’s ambitions in the stars may play well overseas but that means nothing to him compared to the credit he can take for them back at home.