In the wake of its recent successes reaching the Red Planet, China’s space agency has announced the grand goal of executing 11 launch missions and sending a dozen astronauts into space in the next two years.
Yang Liwei, China’s first astronaut and now a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CCPPC), broke the news on Saturday, explaining that the tight space flight schedule was to facilitate the rapid construction of a new orbital station. Chinese.
The next missions are set to include the launch of the main module of the space station in orbit. An experiment lab, a manned spacecraft and, eventually, 12 astronauts are expected to follow, all going according to plan. Beijing plans to launch its new permanent space station in 2022.
Yang also encouraged young Chinese people to join the country’s rapidly expanding space program, which completed its third astronaut recruitment campaign last October, introducing a total of 17 men and a woman to the country’s astronaut training program.
This last recruitment campaign was open to civilians, unlike the previous two, in the early 1990s and in 2010, in which only military personnel were considered.
China has made great strides in space exploration and development in recent years, including its recent Tianwen-1 mission, which entered orbit around Mars and recently started sending images and videos.
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