China set to send 3 astronauts into Space to build its own space station: CMSA announced

China is all set to send the first three crew members to its new space station for three months on reported this Thursday morning.

China is set to send three first personnel to its new space station for three months on Thursday morning, the country's space station announced Wednesday.

The Shenzhou-12 spacecraft, which has three male astronauts to be launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Ji Qiming, assistant director of China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), said a press conference at the launch site.

The spacecraft will take Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo into the construction space of China's space station. This will be the first project undertaken during the construction of the center, he said.

The campaign was launched ahead of the centenary celebrations of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) next month.

After entering the orbit, the spacecraft will perform an instantaneous integration and docking with the in-orbit space station module Tianhe, a complex structure with the main module and the Tianzhou-2 cargo technology.

The astronauts aboard the Shenzhou-12 will be placed in a basic module and remain on the rotation path for three months.

The launch will take place on a long passenger rocket Long March-2F, which will be filled with propellant on Wednesday morning, Ji said.
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China unveiled Tianhe module station core module on April 29. Following this China is now planning to complete key technology certification and orbit construction of the space station with a massive launch within two years.

The ongoing construction center is expected to be ready next year.

Yang Liwei, director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office who entered space in Shenzhou-5 on October 15, 2003, said earlier that astronauts would stay in space for three months, during which they would perform tasks, including repairs and maintenance.

In total, China plans to launch 11 space shuttles this year and next year before the space station is ready.

Three will be modules, four cargo spacecraft and spacecraft, according to official media reports.

The astronauts will be doing a lot of work outside the cabin, repairing and maintaining the spacecraft and other construction projects, Yang said.

"The astronauts coming out of the cabin will be a regular occurrence, and the time for such activities will be greatly extended," he said.

China's space station has been equipped with a robot arm where the US has expressed concern over its military applications.

The arm, which can be stretched up to 15 meters, will play a key role in building an orbit in orbit, said Zhou Jianping, a senior designer of China's space engineering project.

The astronauts will work with the robotic arm to do the construction and maintenance of the space station, Yang said.

China has in the past introduced several satellite-enabled satellites to collect and direct space debris to burn up in the earth's atmosphere.

James Dickinson, chief of the US Space Command, told a conference in April that the technology could be used in the upcoming anti-satellite program and was therefore a concern for U.S. troops.

The Chinese space station is expected to compete with the aging International Space Station (ISS), which is a modular space station in low Earth orbit. ISS is an international cooperation project involving five participating agencies - NASA (US), Roscomos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe) and CSA (Canada).

China's Tiangong is expected to be the only station where the ISS has retired.