The China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) has announced that the country will send its first civilian astronaut into space to the Tiangong space station on May 30.
“Payload specialist Gui Haichao is a professor at Beihang University. He will be responsible for conducting scientific experiments in space,” revealed CMSA spokesperson Lin Xiqiang about China’s first civilian astronaut on the morning of May 29, according to AFP.
China’s Long March 6 rocket. (Photo: Xinhua).
So far, all astronauts sent into space by China have been military personnel.
The commander of the mission on May 30 will be Jing Haipeng, with Zhu Yangzhu as the third crew member.
The rocket carrying the crew to the Tiangong space station will be launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China at 9:31 AM local time on May 30.
On the same day, CMSA announced that China plans to send humans to the Moon by 2030. The agency confirmed that China is developing new-generation equipment to support its lunar exploration ambitions, according to People Daily.
The world’s second-largest economy is striving to catch up with the United States and Russia in the aerospace sector. At the end of 2022, China announced the completion of the Tiangong space station and stated that it would enter its operational phase starting in 2023.
On May 10, China launched the Tianzhou 6 cargo spacecraft into orbit, marking the successful completion of the first mission in the application and development phase of the Chinese space station.
