Beijing confirmed on Tuesday that China will launch a space mission this week, with the nation’s sole female spaceflight engineer among the crew headed to the Tiangong space station.
The Shenzhou-19 mission’s three-person crew will lift off at 4:27 a.m. Wednesday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. The mission, led by the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), aims to advance China’s ambitious plan to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030 and build a lunar base.
Wang Haoze, 34, the only female spaceflight engineer in China, will be the third Chinese woman to participate in a crewed mission. “I dream of visiting the space station,” Wang stated.
The mission commander, Cai Xuzhe, a 48-year-old former Air Force pilot and veteran of a previous Tiangong mission in 2022, expressed his honour and readiness to tackle the new challenges of this mission. Song Lingdong, also 34, completes the crew.
Under President Xi Jinping’s leadership, China’s “space dream” has accelerated, marked by significant milestones, including human orbit, Mars and Moon rovers, and the development of the Tiangong space station.
During their tenure in Tiangong, the Shenzhou-19 crew will experiment with materials simulating lunar soil, exploring their resilience under extreme space conditions. These experiments are critical for future lunar base construction, utilizing local materials to reduce transport costs.
Over recent decades, China’s investment in its space program has positioned it alongside leading spacefaring nations. Notable achievements include the Chang’e-4 probe’s historic lunar far side landing in 2019 and a Mars rover landing in 2021. Tiangong, operational since 2021, is expected to serve for about a decade.
