China declares success as its youngest astronauts reach space
A Chinese spacecraft with a three-person crew, including the country’s first female space engineer, has docked after a journey of more than six hours.
The crew will use the homegrown space station as a base for six months to conduct experiments and carry out spacewalks as Beijing gathers experience and intelligence for its eventual mission to put someone on the Moon by 2030.
Beijing declared the launch of Shenzhou 19 a “complete success” – it is one of 100 launches China has planned in a record year of space exploration as it tries to outdo its rival, the United States.
The BBC was given rare access to the Jiuquan Satellite launch centre in Gansu and we were just over a kilometre away when the spacecraft blasted off.
Flames shot out of the rocket launcher as it took to the skies, lighting up the Gobi Desert with a deafening roar.
Hundreds of people lined the streets, waving and cheering the names of the taikonauts, China’s word for astronauts, as they were sent off.
At the Tiangong space station, the Shenzhou 19 crew met with three other astronauts who are manning the Shenzhou 18 and will return to Earth on 4 November.
Just two years ago, President Xi Jinping declared that “to explore the vast cosmos, develop the space industry and build China into a space power is our eternal dream”.
But some in Washington see the country’s ambition and fast-paced progress as a real threat.
Earlier this year, Nasa chief Bill Nelson said the US and China were “in effect, in a race” to return to the Moon, where he fears Beijing wants to stake territorial claims.
He told legislators that he believed their civilian space programme was also a military programme.
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