China has said that it will soon begin training foreign Astronauts for space trips to its completed new orbiting space station.
Different countries have asked for rides to the Tiangong station, program official Chen Shanguang said in an interview with state broadcaster CCTV that aired Saturday.
“We will soon begin to select candidates from those nations for joint flights to our space station, and they will be able to work with our astronauts to carry out scientific tasks in space,” Chen, deputy chief planner of China’s manned space programs, said in the interview that was republished on Monday, February 27 by the China Daily newspaper official.
“Nominees will undergo an initial selection process before being brought to China for intensive training on how to operate China’s Shenzhou Spaceships and live and work aboard the station”, Chen said in a statement.
“We also hope that the foreign candidates can gain some knowledge about Chinese culture because they will be onboard a Chinese space station,” he added.
Chen did not say whether proficiency in Chinese would be required, although experts interviewed by China Daily said that they expected China’s national language to be used aboard the station.
China completed Tiangong in November last year with the addition of three modules, centered on the Tianhe living and command module.
China built its own station after it was excluded from the International Space Station (ISS), largely due to the United States objections over the Chinese space programs’ intimate ties to the People’s Liberation Army, the military wing of the ruling Communist Party.
While the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is barred by law from most interactions with the Chinese program, Beijing has cooperated with the European Space Agency and individual nations on space projects.
However, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher said in January this year that the International Space Station was the agency’s priority and “we have neither the budgetary nor political green light nor intention to engage in a second space station that is, participating in the Chinese Space Station.”
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At about 66 tons, Tiangong is a fraction of the size of the 465-ton. It can accommodate up to 6 astronauts, though only Three are on board for each 6-month space mission.
With a lifespan of 10 to 15 years, Tiangong could one day be the only space station still up and running if the International Space Station retires around the end of the decade as expected.
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China in 2003 became the third country to send an Astronaut into orbit on its own after the former Soviet Union and the United States.
The country has also marked the boundaries of uncrewed mission successes, its Yutu-2 rover was the first to explore the little-known far side of the moon, and Chang’e 5 probe returned lunar rocks to Earth in December 2020 for the first time since the 1970s, another Chinese rover is searching for evidence of life on Mars.
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