CHINESE Astronauts Enter New Space Station Successfully

PRC claims to have created another unprecedented feat by successfully launching three astronauts into space Station on Thursday. The Shenzhou-12 spacecraft, or Divine Vessel, was launched on a Long March-2F carrier rocket Thursday morning, from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China’s Gobi Desert. According to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), Shenzhou-12 manned spaceship successfully docked with the space station core module Tianhe on Thursday and entered the orbital capsule from the return capsule of the spaceship. After a series of preparations, the astronauts opened the hatches of the node and the Tianhe module and entered the Tianhe module one by one, signifying that for the first time the Chinese have entered their own space station, the CMSA said. The trio will carry out relevant work as planned, it said in a statement here. The spaceship, launched on Thursday morning, completed the orbital status setting after entering the orbit and conducted a fast autonomous rendezvous and docking with the front docking port of Tianhe, forming a three-module complex with the cargo craft Tianzhou-2, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The whole process took approximately 6.5 hours. This is Tianhe’s first rendezvous and docking with a Shenzhou spaceship since it was sent into orbit on April 29, the report said. VOA says China’s military may be examining its decades-old space program for ways to improve data collection and disrupt the satellites of other countries if needed, analysts said this week following a Mars landing and a debris crash into the Indian Ocean. Earlier this month China placed a rover on Mars, the official Xinhua News Agency reported becoming the second nation after the United States to make the landing. A little more than two years ago, China sent its robotic spacecraft Chang’e 4 to a basin on the far side of the moon. A Chinese orbital space biology lab is due for completion by 2025, the Beijing-based Global Times news website said in March. China has left a footprint on Mars for the first time, an important step for our country’s space exploration,” the official Xinhua News Agency said. The U.S. has had nine successful landings on Mars since 1976. The Soviet Union landed on the planet in 1971, but the mission failed after the craft stopped transmitting information soon after touchdown. Edited by PK Chakravarty