China to send youngest astronaut crew to Tiangong space station

China will send its youngest-ever crew of astronauts to the

Tiangong space station

this week, as part of Beijing's ambitious plans for a manned mission to the Moon by the end of the decade. Tiangon has already been credited with sending robotic rovers to Mars and the Moon and has made China the third country to put humans in orbit.
The Tiangong space station is continuously crewed by teams of three astronauts who are rotated out every six months.

The Shenzhou-17 module, carrying this latest trio to the station, is scheduled to blast off at 11:14 am (0314 GMT) on Thursday from the Jiuquan launch site in China's arid northwest.
This mission has the youngest average age of astronauts since the launch of the space station's construction mission. The all-male trio will be led by Tang Hongbo, who is on his first return mission to the Tiangong space station. Tang Shengjie and Jiang Xinlin will accompany him, who are both in their thirties and will be making their maiden space voyages. The crew has an average age of 38, compared to 42 for the crew of Shenzhou-16 during its launch.
Elaborating on the mission, Lin Xiqiang, spokesperson for China's space program said, "The Shenzhou-17 spacecraft will conduct autonomous rendezvous and docking procedures after entering orbit and will dock with the station's core module in approximately six-and-a-half hours.”

China under President Xi Jinping, has invested billions of dollars in the military-run space program to compete with the United States and Russia.
In June, the return capsule of the Shenzhou-15 spaceship had a successful landing in the northern Inner Mongolia region. The launch of the Shenzhou-16 capsule in the same month marked the first time a Chinese civilian, Beihang University professor Gui Haichao, journeyed into orbit. The crew is set to return to earth on October 31 after completing a handover.

The mission to Tiangong space station is in line with China's aim to send a crewed mission to the Moon by 2030 and establish a lunar base there.
(With inputs from AFP)