China has reached another milestone in its ambitious space program. The latest crew of astronauts—accompanied by four laboratory mice—has successfully docked with the Tiangong Space Station in Earth’s orbit. Among them is 32-year-old Wu Fei, now officially the youngest astronaut in the history of China’s manned space program.
According to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft, launched on Friday night from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center aboard a Long March 2F rocket, successfully docked with Tiangong’s core module after a journey of approximately three and a half hours. Astronauts Cang Lu, Wu Fei, and Cang Hongcang then entered the station to begin their mission.
Before joining the manned space program, Wu Fei worked as an engineer at the China Academy of Space Technology, while Cang Hongcang was a researcher at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The team will relieve the previous crew launched on April 24 aboard Shenzhou-20.
In addition to the astronauts, the mission includes two male and two female laboratory mice for scientific experiments—marking China’s first in-orbit study involving rodents.
Due to U.S. restrictions that bar cooperation with China in space research, the country built its own space station instead of joining the International Space Station. China thus remains the third nation, after the United States and Russia, to conduct manned spaceflights.
Under President Xi Jinping’s vision of a “space dream,” China aims to send astronauts to the Moon and establish a lunar base by 2030. The CMSA announced that critical tests for the Lanyue lunar lander and the Mengzhou manned spacecraft are currently underway.