China’s next-generation craft to blast off for space later this decade

Chinese astronaut and former pilot Yang Liwei said that the next-generation crewed spacecraft will enable Beijing to send up to 7 astronauts, and may blast off for space for the first time between 2027 and 2028, as the global space race has intensified.

China’s crewed space flights commenced in 2003 when the former fighter pilot Liwei, was sent into orbit in a small bronze-coloured capsule, the Shenzhou-5. He was the country’s first man to explore space and an instant hero cheered by millions.

Guangzhou Daily cited Yang as saying at a Chinese university Monday: “In the future, a new generation of spacecraft will be used on crewed lunar missions, to build our space station, and for deep-space exploration.”

Yang, who is currently deputy chief designer of China’s manned spaceflight project, said: “Recent tests on the return capsule of the next-generation spacecraft have been very successful, with their first flights estimated to take place between 2027 and 2028.”

The next-generation spacecraft was first tested in 2020.

Since China’s space station became operational late last year, the focus has now shifted to a project to land astronauts on the moon by 2030, with engineers recently disclosing more details of the plan — from the type of carrier rockets to be used to the spacecraft transporting astronauts and other equipment.

China’s current Shenzhou spacecraft, based on Russia’s Soyuz, can transport up to three astronauts to low-Earth orbit. 

It consists of a life-support and propulsion module, an in-orbit module for short-term human habitation, and a re-entry capsule for their return to Earth.

“The new generation of crewed spacecraft will comprise just two parts — the propulsion and the return modules — to allow for bigger modules and a larger carrying capacity of up to seven people,” Zhang Bainan, chief designer of the trial version of the new-generation spacecraft, said in 2020.

The return module’s high heat resistance also allows much of it to be re-used.