China's space station gets new crew as Beijing advances President Xi's "space dream"

China’s space station gets new crew as Beijing advances President Xi’s “space dream”

Benjamin Hughes

Three Chinese astronauts, including the country’s only woman spaceflight engineer, entered the Tiangong space station Wednesday morning following an early morning launch into orbit.

The Shenzhou-19 mission took off with its trio of space explorers from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, state news agency Xinhua and state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Among the crew is Wang Haoze, 34, the spaceflight engineer, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA). She is the third Chinese woman to take part in a crewed mission.

CHINA-SPACE
A long March-2F carrier rocket carrying the Shenzhou-19 spacecraft and crew of three astronauts lifts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, in the Gobi desert, northwest China, on Oct. 30, 2024.

ADEK BERRY / AFP via Getty Images


The crew met with the astronauts from the previous Shenzhou-18 mission, “starting a new round of in-orbit crew handover,” Xinhua said.

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Source: cbsnews.com