China Sends Youngest Astronaut Team to Tiangong Space Station

What is the average age of the astronaut team?

Recently, three Chinese astronauts (also known as taikonauts in China) were sent to the Tiangong space station on the Shenzhou-17 spacecraft. They will stay there for six months. This astronaut team is the youngest group China has ever sent to space, with an average age of 38.

This is China's sixth manned space station mission since 2021. The new astronaut team will replace the previous group, who have been on board since May and will return on 31st October 2023.

What will the astronauts be doing aboard the space station?

In the next six months, the new crew will do science experiments and maintenance tasks. They will also perform a spacewalk to check and maybe repair the space station’s solar arrays. The solar panels were damaged by space debris or micrometeoroids. This will be the first time Chinese astronauts will perform repairs outside the space station.

What do we know about the Tiangong space station?

Tiangong, China's space station, orbits the Earth at an altitude of 340 to 450 km. Tiangong means "Heavenly Palace." It consists of three modules launched between 2021 and 2022. China's first crew visited it in 2021.

This space station will be used for doing different kinds of science experiments, not just by China but also by other countries. Tiangong was finished in 2022, and it can hold three astronauts. It's supposed to work for over 15 years.

China plans to make the space station bigger to fit more astronauts. Right now, the only other space station is the International Space Station, which can hold up to seven astronauts.