A team of taikonauts consisting of E. Guanfu, Li Tsun, and Li Guansu will head to China’s National Orbital Station “Tiangong” as part of the “Shenzhou-18” spacecraft mission. According to Interfax, citing the China Manned Space Program Agency (CMSA), the launch is scheduled for April 25. E. Guanfu will be the commander of the crew.
It is planned that the spacecraft with the taikonauts on board will be launched using the “Changzheng-2F” carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on April 25 at 20:59 Beijing time. The “Shenzhou-18” mission will be the seventh manned mission to the “Tiangong” station. The first such mission was carried out in 2021 when taikonauts Nie Haisheng, Tang Hongbo, and Liu Bomin arrived at the station in June and returned to Earth in September of the same year.
During the current mission, taikonauts will conduct more than 90 experiments in microgravity conditions and carry out several spacewalks. It is planned that they will work on the station for about six months and return to Earth at the end of October this year. After arriving at the station, the taikonauts will replace the current crew – Tang Hongbo, Tang Shanzhe, and Zhan Xinlin, who arrived at “Tiangong” in October last year on the “Shenzhou-17” spacecraft and are scheduled to leave the station on April 30.