{"id":95,"date":"2026-05-24T16:07:45","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T16:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reliablemovingcrews.com\/?p=95"},"modified":"2026-05-24T16:07:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T16:07:45","slug":"china-sends-astronaut-on-year-long-space-mission-as-it-eyes-2030-moon-landing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reliablemovingcrews.com\/?p=95","title":{"rendered":"China sends astronaut on year-long space mission as it eyes 2030 moon landing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><div><div><ul><li>Summary<\/li><\/ul><\/div><div><\/div><\/div><div>JIUQUAN, China, May 24 (Reuters) &#8211; China sent three astronauts to its space station on Sunday, one of whom will stay for a \u200byear, 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 \u200clanding by 2030.<\/div><div>The Shenzhou-23 vessel launched at 11:08 p.m. (1508 GMT) using the Long March-2F Y23 carrier rocket from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, with three Chinese astronauts on board.<\/div><div>Payload specialist Li Jiaying, a former Hong Kong police inspector, is 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 \u200bPeople&#8217;s Liberation Army&#8217;s astronaut division.<\/div><h2>CHINA, US SET SIGHTS ON MOON<\/h2><div>One of the three is to stay on the Tiangong space station for a year, one of \u200bthe 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 \u2060later, depending on the progress of the mission, the China Manned Space Agency said on Saturday.<\/div><div>China has sent astronauts to its space station almost a dozen times, but this \u200blaunch comes amid an accelerating race to the moon with the U.S., which has warned about what it alleges are Beijing&#8217;s plans to colonise and mine lunar territory and resources.<\/div><div>Beijing has \u200bstrongly rejected these claims.<\/div><div>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.<\/div><div>In April, four NASA astronauts made a historic trip around the moon as part of the Artemis II mission, flying farther from Earth than anyone before in the world&#8217;s first crewed lunar \u200bmission in half a century.<\/div><div>On Friday Elon Musk&#8217;s 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 \u200bto send future NASA missions to the moon.<\/div><div>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, \u200cproving it \u2060is 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&#8217;s surface.<\/div><div>China&#8217;s 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.<\/div><h2>GOAL OF PERMANENT LUNAR BASE BY 2035<\/h2><div>The previous mission, Shenzhou-22, was launched ahead of schedule in November to return three Chinese astronauts to Earth after their \u200bShenzhou-20 vessel was damaged by space debris \u200bin orbit.<\/div><div>China has only sent robots to \u2060the moon, but its successive Shenzhou missions highlight the country&#8217;s rapidly improving space capabilities. In June 2024, China became the first country to recover lunar samples from the moon&#8217;s far side, using robots.<\/div><div>A successful crewed landing before 2030 would boost China&#8217;s plans to establish a \u200bpermanent base on the moon by 2035 with Russia.<\/div><div>The Chinese lunar programme&#8217;s chief scientist, Wu Weiren, has said Beijing&#8217;s public timeline \u200bis intentionally conservative.<\/div><div>Over the \u2060past 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.<\/div><div>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 \u2060the Lanyue lander.<\/div><div>Scientists \u200bwill also study the physiological effects of radiation exposure, bone density loss and psychological stress in space \u200bfor the extended duration of the Shenzhou-23 mission.<\/div><div>Beijing is conducting the world&#8217;s first human &#8220;artificial embryo&#8221; experiment in space, having sent samples of human stem cells to the Shenzhou-22 crew on the Tiangong this month, state media reported. \u200bThe experiment is intended to study the long-term residence, survival and reproduction of human beings in space.<\/div><div><address><div><div><noscript>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" alt=\"Laurie Chen\" class=\"wp-image-9\" src=\"https:\/\/reliablemovingcrews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/a8d647782541686b4c9068dd2dfa6f30.avif\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/noscript><\/div><div>Laurie Chen<\/div><\/div><div><ul><li><span><div><svg><title>Email<\/title><\/svg><\/div><\/span><\/li><li><span><div><svg><title>X<\/title><\/svg><\/div><\/span><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/address><\/div><\/div><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/reliablemovingcrews.com\/?p=93\">Don\u2019t fight AI, HSBC CEO tells staff as banks begin job cuts<\/a><\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/reliablemovingcrews.com\/?p=91\">\u2018Am I out?\u2019 Drought and rising costs from Iran war deepen pain for US farmers<\/a><\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/reliablemovingcrews.com\/?p=88\">Civil rights veterans see history repeating after high court guts Voting Rights Act<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China sent three astronauts to its space station on Sunday, one of whom will stay for a \u200byear, 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 \u200clanding by 2030.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[34],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-science"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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