Chinese engineers from the Shenzhou-18 crewed spaceflight mission team cheered the spacecraft's successful launch on Thursday, pledging to send more astronauts safely to space in the future.
The Shenzhou-18 spaceship blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket at 20:59 (Beijing Time) on Thursday.
About 10 minutes after the launch, the spaceship separated from the rocket and entered its designated orbit. The crew members are in good shape and the launch is a "complete success," the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) announced.
The mission's success sent engineers at the control center in Jiuquan into raptures.
"I feel very happy and excited. We have fulfilled our promise and accomplished the task successfully. I hope all goes well for the astronauts' work and life in space," said Zhao Lei, a commander of the Shenzhou-18 mission.
The spaceship has undergone equipment upgrading that will allow for a fast, automated rendezvous and docking with China's Tiangong space station just hours after lift-off.
"Some of the equipment on the Shenzhou-18 has been upgraded to enhance its capabilities and reliability so that astronauts can fly to space more safely. In a few hours, Shenzhou-18 will make a rendezvous and docking with the Tiangong space station combination and it will stay in orbit for half a year. We have achieved another success in our launch missions and I hope the docking procedure will be successful a few hours later," said He Yu, commander in chief of the Shenzhou spaceship.
The Shenzhou-18 is crewed by mission commander Ye Guangfu, and astronauts Li Cong and Li Guangsu.
They will take over command of the Tiangong space station after completing an in-orbit handover with colleagues from the Shenzhou-17 mission, who are scheduled to return to earth on April 30.
During their six-month mission in orbit, the trio aboard the space station will be visited by the Tianzhou-8 cargo craft and will later welcome the Shenzhou-19 crew who will replace them on board.
"For us, this launch mission has higher requirements for reliability. So we have attached great importance to it and made careful preparations. Going forward, we will continue to make two crewed spaceflight missions a year according to the plan and send astronauts to space successfully and safely," said Liu Feng, chief designer of the Long March-2F carrier rocket.
Chinese engineers cheer successful launch of Shenzhou-18 spaceship
