The three-member Shenzhou-23 crew said they have built close bonds in training, boosting their confidence in successfully fulfilling tasks during the upcoming spaceflight mission.
The spaceship is scheduled to be launched at 23:08 Sunday (Beijing Time) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.
The China Manned Space Agency announced on Saturday that astronauts Zhu Yangzhu, Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying will carry out the spaceflight mission.
Zhu will be the commander and flight engineer, Zhang will be the spacecraft pilot, and Lai will be the payload specialist.
Zhu previously participated in the Shenzhou-16 space mission. Zhang and Lai come from the third and fourth batches of astronauts respectively, and will embark on their first spaceflight mission. Before being selected, Zhang was a fighter pilot of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force, and Lai worked in the Hong Kong Police Force.
In an interview with the China Media Group, Zhu noted the special significance of the upcoming mission to himself and Lai, the first astronaut from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).
"This is the first time that an astronaut from the HKSAR has participated in a spaceflight. It's also the HKSAR payload specialist's first trip in space. She is also the first astronaut from the fourth batch to enter the space station. And as an astronaut from the third batch, it's my first time serving as commander," Zhu said.
Lai will be the fourth female astronaut to work at China's Tiangong space station and the first female payload specialist ever. She will be responsible for maintenance of the space station, and space science experiments and tests.
A lifelong Hong Kong resident, Lai said the language barrier has not been a very big issue for her communication with the other two astronauts from the mainland.
"As the first payload specialist from Hong Kong, my role is a bit different than other astronauts. The most striking thing might be the fact that I speak Cantonese, while they speak Mandarin. But in fact, they have been quite interested in Cantonese during our communication," Lai said.
"We would teach her our dialects and also learn some Cantonese from her, which is very interesting. It's quite happy communication. She also likes watching mainland TV dramas, such as Soldiers Sortie, which helped her learn about our military life. Besides, her English is very good, and we will have some English talks, during which she can be our English teacher. Everyone contributes according to their expertise.We are enhancing familiarity through communication like this," Zhu said.
Zhang said that the crew are close in age, have similar personalities, and share the pursuit for high efficiency.
"We are all born in 1980s, so the age difference is small. During training, I have found that the three of us would all complete tasks of a day in a very efficient manner, and then spend the rest of the day in making detailed preparations for the next day's work, so that we can be as efficient that day, thus creating a virtuous cycle," Zhang said.
"During recent training, just a look is enough for us to understand what others are asking for. I think we can do that eighty or ninety percent of the time. We should indeed develop such tacit understanding. Our recent training is quite intense. We haven't been able to get back to rest until very late over the past few weeks. But I think the time is well spent, because we have gradually developed tacit understanding, so we are confident in our mission at the space station," Lai said.
China's Shenzhou-23 astronauts build close bonds during training
