The youngest crew is about to fly to Tiangong Space Station.

The astronauts, with an average age of 38, will spend six months living and working on China's Tiangong space station.

The Shenzhou 17 spacecraft will launch on a Long March 2F rocket. Photo: Xinhua

Three former fighter pilots, aged 33-48, who served on the Shenzhou 17 mission, were introduced at a press conference on October 25th. The Shenzhou 17 spacecraft is scheduled to launch at 11:14 AM local time on October 26th from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China. According to the schedule, the spacecraft will ascend into orbit for nearly seven hours before automatically docking with the Tiangong space station at an altitude of 380 km above the Earth's surface. The three astronauts on board will be welcomed by the Shenzhou 16 crew, who have lived on the station for nearly five months.

The Shenzhou 17 crew will be the third group to live and work on the Tiangong space station this year. They will remain until April next year, when the Shenzhou 18 crew arrives to take over. The mission commander is Tang Hongbo, 48, who was a member of the Shenzhou 12 mission in 2021, the first crew on the Tiangong space station. Tang is not only the first astronaut to live on the space station twice but also holds the record for the shortest break between missions for a Chinese astronaut. Born in Hunan province, Tang joined the country's second generation of astronauts in 2010 after serving as a fighter pilot in the military.

Astronauts Tang Hongbo (center), Tang Shengjie (right), and Jiang Xinlin (left) will live on the Tiangong space station until April next year. Photo: Xinhua

Jiang Xinlin and Tang Shengjie, both fighter pilots, are the two remaining members of the Shenzhou 17 mission. Tang Shengjie, 33, was selected in China's third cohort of astronauts in 2020. As the first astronaut from Gansu province in northwestern China, he is also the youngest member of the crew. Jiang, 35, also joined the space agency in 2020, hails from Henan province in central China.

The most recent Shenzhou 16 mission marked the beginning of the "application and development" phase of China's manned space program, encompassing experimental work, health monitoring, scientific education , and scheduled station maintenance. The Shenzhou 17 crew will continue the work of the previous astronaut team with 70 experiments in the fields of space medicine, biotechnology, ecology, fluid physics, materials science, and more. They will also conduct spacewalks and several cargo missions.

Maintaining the space station will be a top priority. The station's photovoltaic battery pack has suffered some minor damage from collisions with small pieces of debris. Repairs will improve the station's long-term operation. A new crew will conduct maintenance tests to repair the damage. The Shenzhou 16 crew will return to Earth on October 31st. Before returning, they will attempt to take the first high-resolution photograph of the space station in full configuration.

An Khang (According to SCMP )

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