Oct 29, V7N- China announced Tuesday that its upcoming Shenzhou-19 mission will include Wang Haoze, the nation’s only female spaceflight engineer, marking her as the third Chinese woman to join a crewed space mission. Scheduled to launch from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 4:27 am Wednesday (2027 GMT Tuesday), Wang will be part of a three-member team headed by veteran astronaut Cai Xuzhe and joined by astronaut Song Lingdong, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).
 
Cai, a former air force pilot, previously served aboard the Tiangong space station during the Shenzhou-14 mission in 2022. The current crew onboard Tiangong will return to Earth on November 4, following a handover to the incoming astronauts, who are expected to stay in orbit until late April or early May 2024.
 
China’s space program, which has previously launched rovers to Mars and the Moon, now counts the Tiangong space station as its crowning achievement, with rotating crews every six months. Under President Xi Jinping, China’s space ambitions continue to grow, with goals to send astronauts to the Moon and establish a lunar base by 2030.
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