Chinese engineers of the Shenzhou-19 crewed spaceflight mission team cheered the spacecraft's successful launch on Wednesday, pledging to work harder to ensure the success of future missions.
The Shenzhou-19 manned spaceship, with three astronauts on board, has entered its designated orbit after blasting off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 04:27 (Beijing Time) Wednesday.
About 10 minutes after liftoff, the spaceship separated from the Long March-2F carrier rocket and entered its designated orbit. The crew members are in good shape and the launch was a "complete success," announced Zou Lipeng, commander of the launch center.
The successful launch delighted engineers at the control center in Jiuquan.
"The rocket, satellite and launch site systems performed perfectly for this launching mission, while the teamwork between them was also fine. Today's rocket flew as steadily as always, and we made it a precise 10-ring shooting for which we should give a thumb-up for our team, and China's space program. For us, every mission starts from scratch, and we have to do everything in an approach of returning to zero to make it refine in ever detail and do it solidly, eliminating every hidden hazard and making sure that there is no error and absolute success is made," said Zhao Lei, a commander of the Shenzhou-19 mission.
The spaceship is carrying more payloads compared with previous ones, according to engineers.
"We have strict control over the technical status, but with the mission adjustment this time, this spaceship is carrying the largest ever cargo load, manifesting our Shenzhou spaceship's features and advantages in carrying both astronauts and cargo, which includes upward payloads and daily necessities for astronauts in their in-orbit life. Our spaceship is unique in that it can load with short-shelf-life food in the launch area, which makes it able to carry fresh food to the space station," said He Yu, commander in chief of the Shenzhou spaceship.
While in orbit, the Shenzhou-19 spaceship is scheduled to make a fast automated rendezvous and docking with China's Tiangong space station combination, where the three astronauts will stay for approximately six months.
"The spaceship will rendezvous and dock with the space station at noon today (Wednesday), sending the three astronauts and the payload to the space station. Then, it will form a combined unit with the space station, where [the astronauts] will make a long-term stay for half a year," said He.
The mission team optimized the launching process, while the design team of the Long March-2F carrier rocket worked closely with the launch site to ensure a success launch.
"We further optimized the process for this mission to make it smoother. When preparing in the technical area, we conducted corresponding analyses on the testing coverage, so we made some adjustments and optimizations to the process on this basis," said Liu Feng, chief designer of the Long March-2F carrier rocket.
"We worked closely with the launch site systems. [The rocket] took off at the launch site, so our cooperation with them, and our work relations with them are closer," said Liu.
Engineers cheer successful launch of Shenzhou-19
