China launches Shenzhou-23 mission for year-long orbital stay

Shenzhou-23 mission and the year-long orbital stay

China launched the Shenzhou-23 mission on Saturday, in which a Chinese astronaut will spend a full year in orbit for the first time. The flight is a key stage in Beijing’s goal of sending people to the Moon by 2030.

A Long March 2-F rocket lifted off at about 23:00 local time today (16:00 in mainland Portugal) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in north-western China. It is carrying the spacecraft and its three crew members towards the Tiangong space station ("Heavenly Palace").

Crew and scientific work aboard Tiangong

The mission will also be the first spaceflight ever undertaken by an astronaut from Hong Kong, China’s semi-autonomous territory. Li Jiaying, 43, who previously worked for the Hong Kong Police Force, has been selected. The other crew members are commander Zhu Yangzhu, 39, a space engineer, and Zhang Zhiyuan, also 39, a former Air Force pilot.

The crew are expected to undertake several scientific projects in life sciences, materials science, fluid physics and medicine. Shenzhou-23’s defining feature, however, is that one of its three crew members will complete an entire year in orbit. Among other things, the experiment will make it possible to examine the impact of prolonged exposure to microgravity. Such capability is essential when preparing for future lunar, and potentially Martian, missions.

Bone density and radiation present challenges

The astronaut chosen for the year-long stay will be named later, depending on how the Shenzhou-23 mission develops, an official from the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said on Saturday.

The "main challenges" will involve "effects on humans": "loss of bone density, muscle atrophy, radiation exposure, sleep disturbances, behavioural and psychological fatigue", Richard de Grijs, an astrophysicist and professor at Macquarie University’s School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences in Australia, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

De Grijs stressed the importance of dependable water- and air-recycling systems, as well as the ability to handle possible medical emergencies far from Earth. "China has become very competent in these areas, but duration matters. A year in orbit puts equipment and crew into a different operational regime from the shorter Shenzhou missions," de Grijs said. Until now, crews aboard Tiangong have generally spent six months in orbit before being replaced.

Reaching the Moon before 2030

Shenzhou-23 forms part of China’s objective of landing astronauts on the Moon before 2030, a race also being pursued by the United States through its Artemis programme. The equipment required for this ambition is currently being tested.

China is therefore expected to carry out an orbital test flight in 2026 of its new Mengzhou spacecraft ("Dream Vessel"), which is intended to carry astronauts to the Moon.

By 2035, Beijing hopes to build the first phase of a crewed scientific base called the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). It also plans to welcome its first foreign astronaut aboard the Tiangong space station by the end of 2026; the astronaut will be Pakistani.

Over the past 30 years, the Asian giant has expanded its space programmes considerably in an effort to catch up with the United States, Russia and Europe. Its advances have been especially apparent over the past decade. In 2019, China placed the Chang’e-4 space probe on the far side of the Moon, a world first, and in 2021 it landed a small robot on Mars.

China has been formally excluded from the International Space Station (ISS) since 2011, when the United States barred its space agency, NASA, from collaborating with Beijing. That prompted the Asian country to develop its own space-station project.