China’s Shenzhou 18 crew have handed the keys to the Tiangong house station to its new occupants.
The Shenzhou 19 mission launched on a Lengthy March 2F rocket from Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China on Oct. 29 and arrived on the Tiangong house station 6.5 hours later.
Shortly thereafter, at 12:51 a.m. EDT (0451 GMT) on Oct. 30, the hatch between the Shenzhou 19 spacecraft and Tiangong was opened, permitting the three Shenzhou 18 mission astronauts to greet the trio of latest arrivals aboard.
The formal handover of the station occurred on Friday (Nov. 1), with Shenzhou 18 commander Ye Guangfu — who lately grew to become China’s first astronaut to spend one year in house in whole — passing a symbolic key to Shenzhou 19 commander Cai Xuzhe. Each crews then shook palms.
Associated: China’s house station, Tiangong: A whole information
The Shenzhou 19 crew is China’s youngest thus far, with Cai, 48, and rookies Track Lingdong and Wang Haoze, each of whom had been born in 1990. Wang is at the moment China’s solely feminine spaceflight engineer.
The Shenzhou 19 trio now start their very own six-month-long keep aboard Tiangong and get to work on a deliberate 86 scientific initiatives and experiments, in addition to extravehicular actions, or spacewalks.
One notable experiment will contain sending a brick made out of lunar soil simulant to Tiangong for placement outdoors the house station. Researchers need to examine how bricks made out of native moon supplies maintain up in excessive environments to assist plan a future outpost on the floor of the moon. The brick is ready to reach at Tiangong aboard the Tianzhou 8 cargo resupply mission later in November.
In the meantime, Ye and Shenzhou 18 crewmates Li Cong and Li Guangsu will put together to return dwelling. They’re anticipated to the touch down within the Dongfeng touchdown space close to Jiuquan spaceport on Nov. 3.
