Saturday, November 1, 2025 - A crew of three Chinese astronauts, including the nation’s youngest ever, successfully docked with the Tiangong space station early Saturday, November 1, accompanied by an unusual group of passengers: four lab mice.
According to Xinhua News Agency, the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft
docked with Tiangong at 3:35 a.m. Saturday (1935 GMT Friday, October 31),
nearly four hours after launching from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in
northwest China aboard a Long March-2F rocket.
The Tiangong space station, which houses rotating
three-person crews every six months, represents the crown jewel of China’s
ambitious space programme, a project into which Beijing has poured billions of
dollars as it races to rival the United States and Russia in space exploration.
China aims to send astronauts to the Moon before 2030 and
ultimately establish a lunar base, marking a bold step toward what President Xi
Jinping has called the country’s “space dream.”
The Shenzhou-21 crew consists of mission commander Zhang Lu,
a veteran space pilot; flight engineer Wu Fei, aged 32, China’s youngest
astronaut to ever undertake a mission; and payload specialist Zhang Hongzhang,
39.
The trio bid farewell to their families and colleagues at
the launch base in the Gobi Desert, waving as a military band played a
patriotic anthem. “We will report back to our motherland and its people with
complete success,” Commander Zhang Lu told reporters before launch.
First-time astronaut Wu Fei expressed his excitement at the
opportunity, saying he felt “incomparably lucky.”
Joining the astronauts aboard Shenzhou-21 are four mice, two
male and two female, as part of China’s first in-orbit biological
experiments involving rodents. Scientists hope the research will offer new
insights into how prolonged space conditions affect mammals.
Beijing’s space program, which became the third in history
to send humans into orbit after the United States and the Soviet Union, has
rapidly advanced in recent years.
It celebrated major milestones such as the Chang’e-4 probe
landing on the far side of the Moon in 2019, and the successful deployment of a
Mars rover in 2021.
The China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) announced Thursday that
it is conducting “crucial upcoming tests” in preparation for the 2030 Moon
landing mission.
In addition to scientific research, the Shenzhou-21
astronauts will carry out spacewalks and install anti-debris shields on
Tiangong’s exterior to safeguard it from space junk.
The CMSA also said the mission includes a “popular science
education” component, aimed at inspiring young people and expanding
international collaboration in space exploration.
China has been barred from participating in the
International Space Station (ISS) since 2011, when the United States Congress
banned NASA from cooperating with Beijing due to national security concerns.
In response, China has sought to build partnerships with
other nations, signing an agreement with Pakistan in February 2025 to recruit
the first foreign “taikonauts”, a move symbolising Beijing’s growing
ambition to lead a new era of global space cooperation.
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