China's polar icebreaker to plough through belt of prevailing westerlies

China's polar research icebreaker Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, currently on the country's 42nd Antarctic expedition, will plough through the belt of prevailing westerlies on its return journey.

On Thursday, the vessel crossed 60 degrees south latitude, the southern edge of the westerly wind belt, and will now traverse the belt from south to north.

This marks the sixth time Xuelong has crossed the westerlies during the current expedition. The icebreaker is scheduled to arrive in Shanghai in early April.

Meanwhile, Xuelong 2, another polar icebreaker participating in the mission, is heading to Prydz Bay in Antarctica to conduct scientific research on the Southern Ocean ecosystem during the austral autumn. It is expected to return to Shanghai in late May.

China's Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceship blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the country's northwest on Sunday, sending three astronauts to its orbiting space station.

The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, lifted off from the launch site at 23:08 Beijing Time (15:08 GMT).

The crew members consist of mission commander Zhu Yangzhu, and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying, who is also the first astronaut from China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

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

After entering orbit, the Shenzhou-23 spaceship will perform a fast automated rendezvous and docking with the radial port of the space station core module Tianhe, forming a combination of three modules and three spacecraft.

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.