🚀 Ready for liftoff! China has just picked 10 stellar candidates for its fourth batch of astronauts, and here's the exciting part: For the first time ever, the team includes one payload specialist from Hong Kong and another from Macao! 🌟
Selected by the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), these 10 future space travelers comprise eight space pilots and two payload specialists. The inclusion of candidates from Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Macao Special Administrative Region marks a significant milestone, showing strong community support and enthusiastic participation from both regions.
These aspiring astronauts will undergo comprehensive and systematic training at the China Astronaut Research and Training Center. And guess what? They're gearing up not just for missions to the space station but also for future lunar adventures! 🌕
China has its sights set on a manned lunar landing by 2030. Huang Weifen, the chief designer of the manned space program's astronaut system, shared that the astronaut training programs are designed to support both space station missions and upcoming moon missions. Talk about aiming high! 🌠
"We've opened fundamental courses related to geology and arranged relevant training, including field studies and geological surveys," Huang said. "When the development of training simulators for manned lunar missions is completed, we'll be able to undertake more substantive training tasks."
This isn't China's first astronaut selection rodeo. The journey began in 1998 with 14 astronauts, followed by an additional seven in 2010. In 2020, they selected a third batch of 18 astronauts, which for the first time included flight engineers and payload specialists alongside space pilots.
The CMSA highlighted that China's astronaut selection and training system has become more sophisticated and well-established. As international cooperation in crewed space exploration deepens, foreign astronauts might soon be joining missions aboard China's space station. 🌌
China's space ambitions are soaring, and with this new team of astronauts, the sky isn't the limit—it's just the beginning! 🚀✨
Reference(s):
10 candidates selected for China's fourth batch of astronauts
cgtn.com
