奇速英语

祝贺！神舟十六号载人飞船发射取得圆满成功

China on Tuesday launched the Shenzhou XVI manned spaceship, sending three astronauts to its space station combination for a five-month mission.

Sitting inside the Shenzhou XVI spacecraft, Gui Haichao and his commander Major General Jing Haipeng and fellow astronaut Colonel Zhu Yangzhu were launched by a 20-story-tall Long March 2F carrier rocket that left the ground at 9:31 am at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gobi Desert. After a short flight, the spaceship was placed into a low-Earth orbit about 400 kilometers above the planet. Within hours of the launch, the manned craft is due to approach and dock with the Tianhe core module (核心舱) of the Tiangong space station. The crew will then move into the Tiangong to meet the astronauts from the Shenzhou XV mission — commander Major General Fei Junlong, Senior Colonel Deng Qingming and Senior Colonel Zhang Lu — who arrived on Nov. 30, 2022.

The Shenzhou XVI crew members will stay inside the Tiangong space station for around five months and are scheduled to return in November, 2023. They will carry out several spacewalks during the mission to mount equipment outside the station and also conduct maintenance work.

The journey is the first flight of China’s third generation of astronauts, and the first time a Chinese civilian has traveled to space. Jing and Zhu are members of the People’s Liberation Army’s Astronaut Division, while Gui is a doctoral supervisor at the Department of Spacecraft and Launch Vehicle Technology of Beihang University’s School of Astronautics in Beijing. Until the latest mission, all Chinese astronauts who have taken part in spaceflights have been military personnel. The first two generations of astronauts were selected from experienced Air Force aviators. The third generation of astronauts, which was grouped around October 2020, includes civilians. Zhu and Gui are the first members of the third-generation astronauts to enter the space.