Watch China launch Shenzhou 15 astronauts to Tiangong space station Tuesday

November 29, 2022

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China is poised to launch three astronauts to its Tiangong space station on Tuesday morning (Nov. 29), and you’ll watch the motion stay.

A Long March 2F rocket is scheduled to launch the Shenzhou 15 mission towards Tiangong on Tuesday from China’s Jiuquan Satellite tv for pc Launch Heart at 10:08 a.m. EST (1508 GMT; 11:08 p.m. native time).

You’ll be able to watch stay right here at Area.com, courtesy of CCTV, or directly from the Chinese broadcaster (opens in new tab). Protection begins at 6:30 a.m. EST (1130 GMT).

Associated: Chinese astronauts enter newly arrived cargo spacecraft at Tiangong space station

China’s Shenzhou 15 spacecraft and its Lengthy March 2F rocket on the pad at Jiuquan spaceport on Nov. 21, 2022. (Picture credit score: CMSA)

Shenzhou 15 will ship Fei Junlong (the mission’s commander), Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu to Tiangong for a roughly six-month keep. The mission is predicted to reach on the T-shaped space station about six hours after launch.

The Shenzhou 15 astronauts will meet three of their counterparts aboard Tiangong — the crew of Shenzhou 14, which launched in early June. This can be a primary for China, which has by no means supported two crews on the orbiting outpost concurrently earlier than.

The overlap can be transient, nonetheless; Shenzhou 14 is predicted to return to Earth within the coming days.

Tiangong is about 20% as large because the International Space Station. The Chinese language outpost is now absolutely constructed; its meeting phase ended shortly after the arrival of Mengtian, its third and remaining module, on Oct. 31.

China plans to proceed working Tiangong for at the least the following 10 years. Most of its occupants over that span will presumably be homegrown astronauts, however Chinese language space officers have mentioned they might ultimately open the station to overseas spaceflyers and perhaps even to space tourists.

Mike Wall is the writer of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a e book in regards to the seek for alien life. Comply with him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Comply with us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab).