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China's space programme
ChinaScience

China’s Shenzhou 14 astronaut trio ready for lift-off on Sunday, space agency confirms

  • Rocket carrying three-member crew, including China’s first woman in space, will launch from Inner Mongolia on Sunday morning
  • Mission commander Chen Dong will be leading the first-ever team of second-generation astronauts picked from air force pilots in 2010

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(L-R) Cai Xuzhe, Chen Dong and Liu Yang will help finish the core structure of China’s Tiangong space station Photo: AP
Jack Lau
A new team of three Chinese astronauts is preparing to blast off on Sunday on a six-month mission to finish the core structure of China’s Tiangong space station.
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The Long March 2F rocket carrying the Shenzhou 14 crew is scheduled to lift off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in China’s northern Inner Mongolia region at 10.44am, the country’s crewed space agency said on Saturday, confirming a South China Morning Post report.

The crew of mission commander Chen Dong, Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe will be the first to only comprise younger, second-generation Chinese astronauts hand-picked 12 years ago from among air force pilots.

Once the Tiangong’s basic T-shaped structure – a core module and two space labs – is complete, the space station will be the biggest structure built and maintained by a single country in low-Earth orbit.

“Propellent has started being injected into the Long March 2F rocket for the mission,” Lin Xiqiang, a China Manned Space Agency spokesman, said.

02:20

Shenzhou 13 astronauts return to Earth after 6 months on China’s longest space mission yet

Shenzhou 13 astronauts return to Earth after 6 months on China’s longest space mission yet

Each previous Shenzhou mission had been led by a veteran astronaut who had been in the space programme since the late 1990s.

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