THE Chinese missile Shenzhou-21 with its crew, which includes the youngest member of the Chinese astronaut corps, launched on Friday with a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuchuan Space Launch Centerin northwest China, as reported by the country’s state media.

It was the seventh mission to the permanently manned Chinese space station since it was completed in 2022.

Shenzhou program missions involve crews of three astronauts remaining in space for about six months, with younger astronauts gradually replacing more experienced ones. Zhang Hongzhang, 39, and Wu Fei, 32 – the youngest Chinese astronaut ever sent into space – have been selected to join the program in 2020.

The mission commander is Zhang Lu, 48, who had traveled to space on the Shenzhou-15 mission in 2022.

The first small mammals on the Chinese space station

The Shenzhou-21 crew will replace the Shenzhou-20 astronauts, who have been living and working on the Tiangong space station – meaning “Heavenly Palace” – for more than six months. The Shenzhou-20 crew is expected to return to Earth in the coming days.

The Shenzhou-21 astronauts are also accompanied by four black micethe first small mammals ever carried to the Chinese space station.
The mice will be used in breeding experiments in low Earth orbit.

Biennial launches have now become standard for the Shenzhou program, which in the past year has achieved major milestones — including the inclusion of astronauts born in the 1990s, a record spacewalk, and plans to train and send the first foreign astronaut, from Pakistan, to the Tiangong Station within the next year.

Rapid developments in the Chinese space program have caused concern in Washingtonwhich is accelerating plans to send an American astronaut to the Moon before China does.

Both countries are now also competing at the level of space diplomacy: the US-led Artemis Accords for lunar exploration are pitted against the Sino-Russian plan to create the International Lunar Research Station.