China's Space Program Thread II
- Thread starter Blitzo
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Mengzhou 1 (MZ-1) manned spacecraft (No man onboard with the first one ) mission to be launch onboard CZ-10A Rocket at Wenchang Space Launch Centre next year to rendezvous and dock with CSS in LEO to verify systems and ferry some cargo
CMSEO's announcement confirms one Mengzhou mission next year
Shenzhou-21 Manned Spacecraft. It’s like making statement.
Next Destination : Moon
CMSEO's announcement confirms one Mengzhou mission next year
Shenzhou-21 Manned Spacecraft. It’s like making statement.
Next Destination : Moon
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Docking occurred earlier in the day, 3 hours and 28 minutes, the fastest docking of a SZ module and rendezvous. Below is a nice photo of them all together, the six of them, SZ-20 and SZ-21 crews.
On the MZ-1 mission, as I corrected (and like Daniel said) it is unmanned, but another piece of information I found interesting is the timing of the launch, I believe we can place the launch later in the year, 2026, I know someone on NasaSpaceFlight mentioned November-December which lines up with my understanding of the SZ-21 and SZ-22 mission timing. We will know more next year, so for now, treat this as speculation. Also we had further confirmation that it will be launched on the CZ-10A.
I was also able to download the document from the CMSA, that they put out today. Some interesting information within.
The TZ-10 mission as described seems pretty standard. The part where I took notice was the SZ-22 and SZ-23 mission descriptions. We have confirmation that SZ-22 will dock to the radial port of the core module, and SZ-23 will be docking at the forward port. We also have confirmation that one taikonaut from the SZ-22 mission will spend over a year in space, seemingly through the the SZ-23 mission. This is the first time we have heard of a one-year or longer stay/mission, as far as I know, and raises questions on how they will do crew selection on the SZ-23 (potentially non-Chinese astronauts?) so that is exciting to watch.
For the MZ-1 mission, like I said, standard stuff. Maiden flight, will be quite upgraded obviously compared to the Shenzhou craft, and they are verifying basic and complex aspects of the craft itself.
I do believe this is basically confirmation, also, at this point, that SZ-23 will consist of one Pakistani astronaut. Likely will come to the space station, and leave on the SZ-22 craft. But again, as we do not know for 100 percent certainty yet, I will say a strong possibility with basic confirmation.
Agree that MZ-1 is likely to be launched in Nov-Dec, 2026. MZ-1 apparently won't be earlier than SZ-22, and the radial docking port required for the MZ-1 will not be available until after SZ-22's evacuation in Nov.
Alright so I saw some new information, Hong Kong/Macau may be included in one of the missions as well. That's partially why I said non-Chinese (meaning non-SAR as well) although I suppose that was a bit vague. They are part of the normal astronaut corps and receive the same training, indications were that possibly in 2026 they would fly. So we might see a Hong Kong/Macau based taikonaut and a Pakistani astronaut.
Jack from China in Space also published a potential list of the year-long visitor, narrowing it down to those who have multiple missions under their belt, and excluding those who have returned in recent months. The list is below:
That is all for tonight I believe.