 "China to Send First Civilian Into Space")
China will launch its first civilian astronaut into space on Tuesday as part of a crewed mission to the Tiangong space station, the country’s Manned Space Agency said.
Gui Haichao, a payload expert, will take off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China on Tuesday at 9:31 am local time (01:31 GMT), the agency said.
Until recently, all Chinese astronauts in space were members of the People's Liberation Army.
According to a space agency spokesperson, Gui, a professor at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, will "mainly be responsible for the on-orbit operation of space science experimental payloads."
The commander of Tuesday's mission is Jing Haipeng, who is on his fourth trip into space, while the third crew member is engineer Zhu Yangzhu.
China, which plans to land astronauts on the moon by 2030, has poured billions of dollars into its military-run space project, hoping to catch up with the United States and Russia after years of lagging behind.
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It completed the construction of Tiangong, its third and permanent space station, last year. The final module of the T-shaped Tiangong, whose name means "heavenly palace" - docked successfully with the core structure in November.
According to Chinese news agency Xinhua, the station carries a number of cutting-edge scientific equipment, including "the world's first space-based cold atomic clock system."
Tiangong is expected to remain in low Earth orbit between 400-450 kilometres above the earth for at least ten years, achieving the goal of maintaining a long-term human presence in space.
It will be constantly crewed by rotating teams of three astronauts who will conduct scientific research and help test new technologies.
While China does not intend to use Tiangong for global cooperation on the scale of the International Space Station, it has stated that it is open to foreign collaboration.
It is unclear how extensive that cooperation will be.
(With agency input)
