China will send its next manned mission Shenzhou-21 into space on Friday night, with the youngest astronaut in the history of the country and four lab mice aboard, officials announced on Thursday. China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) spokesperson Zhang Jingbo said that the mission would launch at 11:44 p.m. local time (1544 GMT) at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.
The trip of the three-member crew will be to the Tiangong space station which is the highlight of the ambitious space program of China. The Tiangong, to which three-man rotation teams of astronauts have been assigned, is the great push by Beijing to compete with the United States and Russia in space exploration.
The Shenzhou-21 mission commander, Commander Zhang Lu, 48, is an experienced astronaut and served in Shenzhou-15 mission. Others with him include Flight Engineer Wu Fei, 32, who will be the youngest Chinese astronaut to fly into space and Payload Specialist Zhang Hongzhang, 39.
Wu Fei was excited about the launch, and he said that he felt incomparably luckier. The fact that I will be able to combine my personal dreams with the glorious project of the Chinese space programme is the best fortune that this era has ever granted to me.
The crew will also bring four mice, two male and two female, in a special addition as it is the first in-orbit biological experiment on rodents in China. The use of these experiments is intended to improve the science of space living conditions and their impact on the biology of mammals.
Commander Zhang Lu said his squad was optimistic that they would be reporting to their motherland and its citizens with all success.
The third country in the world to launch humans in space, the space program of China has gained a lot of milestones such as placing robotic rovers on Mars and the moon.
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