Overview
- Shenzhou-23 is scheduled to launch from Jiuquan at 11:08 pm on Sunday and will carry three crew members: commander Zhu Yangzhu, pilot Zhang Zhiyuan and Hong Kong payload specialist Lai Ka-ying.
- CMSA says one crew member will be chosen during the mission to remain on Tiangong for about a year to gather long-duration human physiology data for radiation, bone loss and psychological effects.
- The mission will conduct space science, cargo transfer and planned extravehicular activities while running more than 100 experiments including studies with zebrafish, mice and human stem-cell derived samples described by state media as 'artificial embryo' research.
- Lai Ka-ying is a 43-year-old former Hong Kong police inspector with a PhD in computer science and received an official send-off attended by Hong Kong ministers who praised her selection as recognition of the city’s tech talent.
- China frames Shenzhou-23 as an operational step toward a crewed Moon landing by 2030 and will use the flight to validate life-support systems, rapid autonomous docking and other hardware that are being tested alongside new craft such as the Mengzhou capsule.