China to launch Shenzhou-23 with first Hong Kong astronaut

China will launch the Shenzhou-23 crewed mission to the Tiangong space station on Sunday night, marking the first time a Hong Kong astronaut, Li Jiaying, will travel to orbit. He joins Chinese astronauts Zhu Yangzhu and Zhang Zhiyuan.

Beijing: China plans to launch its next manned mission to the Tiangong space station on Sunday — the country’s first space mission to have a Hong Kong astronaut onboard.

Chinese astronauts Zhu Yangzhu and Zhang Zhiyuan, and Hong Kong’s Li Jiaying will be part of the Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceflight mission, said China Manned Space Agency on Saturday.

---

Li Jiaying is the first orbital traveller from Hong Kong.

This development comes years after Hong Kong was handed back to China by the UK on July 1, 1997, with certain rights supposed to be guaranteed for at least 50 years under the “one country, two systems” agreement.

The Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceship is scheduled to be launched at 11:08 pm on Sunday (Beijing Time) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China, said Zhang Jingbo, CMSA.

China replaces the crew of its station in low orbit every six months, but this time, one of the new crew members may stay for a year to study the long-term effects on the astronaut’s health and to improve in-orbit medical support, the spokesperson said.

The crew of the current Shenzhou spaceship has so far been aloft for more than 200 days and is on track to break the record held by the previous crew, which returned to Earth after 204 days.

During their time on the space station, the Shenzhou-23 crew will conduct more than 100 new scientific studies, including research on zebrafish, mice and artificial embryos to study reproduction in space.

After the Hong Kong astronaut, China plans to send a Pakistani national to the station. Two selected candidates from Pakistan are currently undergoing training.

Earlier this month, Chinese space officials said plans are afoot to expand the low-earth orbiting space station, potentially more than doubling in size as the rival International Space Station (ISS) is set to be phased out by 2031.

China operationalised its space station in 2022.

Currently, China’s Tiangong space station and the ISS, a collaborative project involving NASA along with the space agencies of Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada, are in orbit.

After the ISS, which is a collaborative project of several countries, phases out, China’s space station may become the only one of its kind in orbit.