A three-person Chinese crew, including the nation’s youngest astronaut, successfully docked with the Tiangong space station early Saturday, bringing along four laboratory mice for scientific experiments.
China’s Xinhua news agency reported that Shenzhou-21 made contact at 3:22 a.m. (1922 GMT Friday), about three and a half hours after launching from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China aboard a Long March-2F rocket.
The Tiangong space station, home to three-person crews rotated every six months, is the centerpiece of China’s growing space program. The program, backed by billions of dollars, aims to rival the United States and Russia in space exploration.
China has ambitious plans to send astronauts to the Moon by the end of the decade and eventually establish a lunar base.
Mission commander and veteran astronaut Zhang Lu is joined by 32-year-old flight engineer Wu Fei, China’s youngest astronaut to fly in space, and 39-year-old payload specialist Zhang Hongzhang.
The crew waved farewell to family and colleagues at the remote Gobi Desert launch site, accompanied by patriotic music. Zhang Lu expressed confidence that the mission would “report back to our motherland and its people with complete success,” while first-time astronaut Wu Fei described feeling “incomparably lucky.”
Four lab mice—two male and two female—are part of China’s first in-orbit experiments using rodents, marking a milestone for the country’s space research.
China’s Space Ambitions
China’s space program is the third in history to send humans into orbit, following the United States and the former Soviet Union.
On October 31, 2025, a Long March-2F rocket lifted the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft and its three astronauts from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre.
Under President Xi Jinping, China has accelerated its “space dream,” achieving historic milestones such as the 2019 Chang’e-4 landing on the Moon’s far side and the 2021 Mars rover mission.
On Thursday, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) outlined critical upcoming tests in preparation for a crewed Moon mission by 2030. The Shenzhou-21 astronauts will conduct scientific experiments, perform spacewalks, and install anti-debris shields on the Tiangong station.
CMSA also said the crew will engage in “popular science education,” aiming to inspire future space talent in China and abroad.
Since 2011, China has been excluded from the International Space Station due to a U.S. ban on collaboration. Beijing has instead pursued international partnerships, signing an agreement with Pakistan in February to recruit the first foreign “taikonauts.”
