China to send its first civilian astronaut into space

Kathmandu: China will send its first civilian astronaut into space as part of a crewed mission to the Tiangong space station on Tuesday, according to officials.

Gui Haichao, a payload expert, will take off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Tuesday at 9:31am local time. Until now, all Chinese astronauts sent into space have been members of the People’s Liberation Army.

A spokesman for the space agency told reporters that Gui, who is 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 – on his fourth journey into space, according to state media – while the third crew member is engineer Zhu Yangzhu.

China, which plans to land astronauts on the moon by 2030, has invested billions of dollars into its military-run space programme, trying to catch up with the United States and Russia after years of belatedly matching their milestones.