China picks veteran to lead first space station crew, as lift-off preparations begin

The Long March 2F rocket carrying them to the Tianhe module – the first part of the Tiangong space station – is expected to lift off at around 9.22am from the Jiuquan satellite launch centre in the Gobi Desert. Propellant refuelling for the rocket was under way on Wednesday morning, according to the China Manned Space Engineering Office.

Ji Qiming, assistant director, told a morning press conference that the mission would be led by Commander Nie Haisheng, who at 56 will set a record as China’s oldest astronaut in space. It will be his third space mission. The record for the oldest person in space is held by American John Glenn – best known for orbiting the Earth in 1962 – who was 77 when he flew in the space shuttle in 1998.

Nie, who captains the Astronaut Brigade of the People’s Liberation Army, was selected as one of China’s first 14 astronauts in 1997 and was part of the Shenzhou-6 and 10 missions in 2005 and 2013, respectively. He will be joined by Liu Boming, 54, another member of the 1997 cohort, who took part in the Shenzhou-7 mission of 2008.

The third member of the crew is 45-year-old Tang Hongbo, who will be on his maiden space flight.

They will be the first Chinese astronauts to set foot in a space station since 2011. A US law banning Nasa from space cooperation with China has effectively excluded access to the International Space Station which has hosted more than 240 men and women of various nationalities in the past two decades.

The Shenzhou-12 – which means “divine vessel” in Chinese – is China’s first manned space flight in nearly five years and is scheduled for less than two weeks before the Communist Party’s centenary celebrations on July 1. It is the third of 11 planned construction missions for the space station, which is expected to be completed by 2022. Four of the missions will be crewed, with plans to send up to 12 astronauts.