China launches Shenzhou 21 Mission, carrying 3 taikonauts – and 4 mice – to replace Space Station Crew
Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center – China launched its Shenzhou-21 Spacecraft on Friday, carrying three new crew members to build the Tianong Space Station in a meeting focused on scientific research. The Prewment Crew includes a small spaceship living in China – China’s Taikonaut – as the China Space program calls the stars – and, for the first time since Beijing launched its program, will also include live mammals.
The Shenzhou-21 and its crew blasted off at the Jiuquan satellite launch center in northwest China atop a 2ft long rocket just before midnight on Friday, or around 11am.
Board Taikonauts – Zhang Lu, and Zhang Hongzhang – will rotate so the trio is currently on board the Shenzhou-20 station, starting to return home after six months. The exact date of their return is yet to be announced.
Maxim Shemetov / Reuters
The crew of Shenzhou-21 is scheduled to carry out 27 scientific projects and use many fields including life sciences, biotechnology, according to the new space information, according to information provided by the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).
Along with the taikonauts, Shenzhou-21 is carrying four mice – two females and two males – the first living animals ever carried by China into space. The last two machines at Tianong Station were carrying live fish.
Taikonauts will study the effects of biological stress and confined conditions on the behavior patterns of rats.
The Shenzhou-21 crew, with Lu as their commander, are scheduled to remain on the space station for about six months, as replacement crews.
Maxim Shemetov / Reuters 
It will not be the first visit to the LU station, which previously served on the Shenzhou-15 Mission.
The other members of the two teams making their first Spainflight, and Flight engineer Wu, born in 1993, will be the youngest Taikonaut ever sent into space by his nation.
“I feel incredibly lucky,” he told reporters on Thursday. “Being able to combine my travel dreams with the glorious journey of the China Space Program is the greatest treasure this era has to offer.”
Crowds gathered around the opening site of Jiuquan on Friday before the countdown, and a man who identified himself to CBS News only as his 7-year-old son, “hopes to plant the seeds of his local dream.”
China’s “Space Dream”
China has unilaterally destroyed its space program since it was not included in the International Space Station project – mainly due to the concerns of the US government about the full control of the US military over its program – to achieve the “space dream” under President Xi Jinping.
It has been anchored at the Tianong station since 2021, and now there are plans to bring non-Chinese Credinember into the area.
China will organize the national One Pakistan to carry out temporary space operations in the future, CMSA said, following the signing of a cooperation agreement between the two countries in February.
China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation 
The process of selecting Pakistan National for training has already started, as well as planning training programs and preparing food support for Pakistanis.
After the selection process, the two Pakistani nationals will travel to China to train and train Chinese taikonauts for the upcoming tour, CMSA said.
CMSA spokesperson Zhang Jingbo said during a press conference this week before the Shenzhou-21 launch that China welcomes international partners to participate in its channel.
The work done on China’s space station coincides with and often praises the nation’s efforts to become the first nation to land a human on the moon in more than 40 years. Chinese authorities have made it a public goal to install taikonauts on Earth by 2030, and eventually build a lunar base.
China has already received random cases in the month, including the first in the world as well Collect samples from the side of the celestial body just last year.
“Overall, research and development have been going well, and China aims to achieve the goal of landing Chinese astronauts on the moon before 2030,” Zhang said this week before the opening of Shenzhou, indicating that CMSA remains on track to achieve its lunar goals.
