Beijing completed its first project in almost five years in the middle of a new air competition.
China will send three men into the air Thursday on their first nearly five-year mission, part of a plan to complete the reserve by the end of next year.
China is expected to establish Shenzhou-12 9:22 am (01:22 GMT) Thursday from Jiuquan northwest of Gansu province, another official at China Manned Space Agency Wednesday.
The experts are Nie Haisheng, 56, Liu Boming, 54, and Tang Hongbo, 45, Ji Qiming, China’s Manned Space Agency’s chief of staff, told reporters. Nie will be the oldest man that China sent into space.
Shenzhou-12, meaning “Divine Vessel”, will be the third of 11 destined to complete China’s destiny by 2022.
At least four of the 11 planned members will be supervised, possibly placing up to 12 Chinese experts in the air.
China began construction operations this year with the establishment of Tianhe – the first and largest phase of the three-channel station – at the end of April.
Staff at Shenzhou-12 should be on Tianhe, meaning “Heavenly Unity”, cylinder 16.6 meters (55 feet) long and 4.2 meters (14 feet) in diameter, for three months.
An ancient Chinese expert to lead the work
Nie, a native of central Hubei and a former pilot, has spearheaded the project.
Shenzhou-12 will be the third Nie departure, following the launch of the Shenzhou-6 mission in 2005 and the Shenzhou-10 mission in 2013, according to the Xinhua news agency.
This will be Liu’s second mission to go into space, the first being the Shenzhou-7 mission in 2008, which had a well-known air force. It will be Tang’s first flight in the sky.
There are also three pilots in charge of the project.
The last construction project in China was in 2016 when two men – Chen Dong and Jing Haipeng – were sent via Shenzhou-11 warships to Tiangong-2, a space station exhibition where they stayed for about a month.
Although there are no women planning for the Shenzhou-12 operation, they are expected to take part in all of the meetings, according to the Global Times.
Two women, Liu Yang and Wang Yaping, were selected in 2011 among the second group of Chinese experts, after the first group of 14 men in the 1990s. Liu was the first Chinese woman in the air in 2012, when Wang was the last, with 33 years, in 2013.
Chinese watchers have a low record in the world.
A United States law barring NASA from China means that its astronauts did not go to the International Space Station for more than a dozen years, which was visited by more than 240 men and women of various nationalities.
China is accelerating its ground-breaking program against the West, including the United States.
Beijing’s goal is for the country to become a major power by 2030, turning the place into a new frontier of its competition with the US.
In May, it became the second country to launch a spacecraft on Mars, two years after landing the first spacecraft on the actual surface of the moon.
