Shenzhou-16 Mission

Subject : Science and technology

Section: Space Technology

Concept :

China sent its first civilian astronaut into orbit, as it launched the Shenzhou-16 mission to its Tiangong space station.

Shenzhou 16

Shenzhou 16 is a Chinese spaceflight to the Tiangong space station, launched on 30 May 2023 on board a Shenzhou spacecraft.
It carries two People’s Liberation Army Astronaut Corps (PLAAC) taikonauts and a payload specialist from Beihang University.
The mission is the eleventh crewed and sixteenth flight overall of the Shenzhou program.

Tiangong space station

Tiangong space station which translates as “Heavenly Palace” is China’s permanent space station.
China had previously launched two temporary trial space stations, named as Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2.
The Tiangong space station has three modules namely:
Tianhe: the core module launched in 2021
Wentian: science module 1, launched in 2022
Mengtian: science module 2, also launched in 2022
Tiangong space station is planned in such a way that it shares its orbit with the Xuntian space telescope in order to facilitate astronauts to repair and upgrade the telescope easily.
China became only the third country in history to have put both astronauts into space and to build a space station, after the Soviet Union and the US.
China believes that Tiangong will replace the International Space Station (ISS), which is due to be decommissioned in 2031.