First Hong Kong astronaut launches into space onboard Chinese mission

A Hong Kong astronaut has been launched into abstraction for the archetypal time, aboard China's Shenzhou-23 spacecraft.

Li Jiaying, a 43-year-old constabulary serviceman and parent of three, serves arsenic the payload idiosyncratic successful the three-member unit who made their mode to China's Tiangong abstraction presumption connected Sunday night.

At slightest 1 subordinate of the unit volition walk a afloat twelvemonth successful orbit arsenic portion of a cardinal experiment. Authorities volition find who that volition beryllium astatine a aboriginal date.

The ngo is the latest successful China's ambitious abstraction programme to nonstop humans to the satellite by 2030. It comes amid an accelerating contention with the US, which is looking to execute a crewed lunar landing by 2028.

The Shenzhou-23 is tasked with studying the effects of microgravity connected the quality body, among galore experiments.

Apart from Li, the 2 different astronauts connected the ngo are Zhu Yangzhu, a 39-year-old abstraction technologist and Zhang Zhiyuan, a erstwhile aerial unit pilot, 39-year-old erstwhile aerial unit pilot.

Large crowds waved Chinese flags arsenic the rocket launched from the north-west Gobi godforsaken connected the Long March 2-F rocket astatine 23:08 section (15:08 GMT) Sunday. A fewer hours later, it docked connected the Tiangong abstraction station.

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said Li's inclusion successful the ngo was a "historic" moment.

Li said she was inspired by Yang Liwei, the archetypal idiosyncratic sent to abstraction by China's abstraction programme.

"This is simply a uncommon chance. Why not try?" Li said, according to Xinhua quality agency.

Since 2021, China has been sending astronauts to its Tiangong abstraction presumption connected six-month stays.

"A twelvemonth successful orbit pushes some hardware and humans into a antithetic operational authorities compared with the shorter Shenzhou missions of the programme's earlier phases," Richard de Grijs, an astrophysicist and prof astatine Macquarie University successful Australia, told AFP quality agency.

This shows however China is gathering its expertise successful agelong stays successful abstraction arsenic good arsenic heavy abstraction exploration, de Grijs said.

Later this year, China is acceptable to equine an orbital trial formation for its Mengzhou spacecraft, which is designed to transportation astronauts to the moon.