Chinese hospital ship 'Peace Ark' concludes visit in Gabon

The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy hospital ship "Peace Ark" completed its week-long mission in Gabon and left for Cameroon on Thursday.

At 10:00 local time, the Peace Ark left the Owendo Port in Libreville, the capital of Gabon, where Gabonese officials, local residents, staff of Chinese institutions, and overseas Chinese held a seeing-off ceremony and waved goodbye to the soldiers on board.

During the seven days in Gabon, the Peace Ark used its main platform to provide medical services to incoming patients. In addition, it also dispatched expert teams and medical teams to local hospitals to offer joint medical treatment to local residents.

The medical professionals on the ship provided medical treatment to over 6,900 people, conducted auxiliary examinations for more than 3,300 people, and successfully performed 171 surgeries.

The hospital ship also performed the first ship-based robotic operation on a 71-year-old male patient in Gabon after having a confirmed diagnosis and getting the patient's consent.

When offering joint medical treatment, doctors from China and Gabon engaged in in-depth discussions on surgical skills. Gabonese doctors also observed a gallbladder removal surgery on the Peace Ark.

"The operation went smoothly. Gabonese doctors observed the whole process of our surgery. We exchanged experiences with them about promoting minimally invasive surgery in Gabon. The advanced medical facilities on the hospital ship and the professional skills of Chinese doctors are recognized by Gabonese doctors," said Doctor Pang Tao with the Mission Harmony-2024.

The Peace Ark set sail from a military port in Zhoushan in east China's Zhejiang Province in mid-June for the Mission Harmony-2024.

During the mission, the ship will visit 13 countries in total and provide medical services to local people. It will also make port calls to France and Greece.

Chinese hospital ship 'Peace Ark' concludes visit in Gabon

The three astronauts aboard China's Shenzhou-23 spaceship have entered the country's Tiangong space station and met with their astronaut colleagues early Monday morning, as they now begin an in-orbit crew handover.

Mission commander Zhu Yangzhu and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying successfully entered the station's core module Tianhe after the spaceship made a fast automated rendezvous and docked with the Tianhe module at 02:45 (Beijing Time) on Monday.

The three Shenzhou-21 crew members opened the hatch at 05:13 (Beijing Time) and greeted the new arrivals, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

The six astronauts then took group pictures for the eighth in-orbit get-together in China's aerospace history.

Notably, one of the Shenzhou-23 crew members is set to undertake a year-long stay aboard the space station, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.

The Shenzhou-23 spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 23:08 (Beijing Time) on Sunday.

Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.

Shenzhou-23 astronauts enter Tiangong space station, meet Shenzhou-21 crew