China News Service, Jiuquan, June 16th, title: "Female Astronaut Coach" announced why they are the crew of "God 12" astronauts?
Reporter Guo Chaokai
According to news from the China Manned Space Engineering Office on the 16th, three astronauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming, and Tang Hongbo will perform the Shenzhou 12 manned mission.
This is the first time China has sent astronauts into space after five years.
How did the three astronauts stand out from the selection, and what missions will they carry out in space?
How will three months of space life be spent?
On the eve of the Shenzhou 12 mission, Huang Weifen, the chief designer of the astronaut system of China's manned space engineering, known as the "female astronaut coach", announced the answer.
On June 16, the three astronauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo who performed the Shenzhou 12 manned mission met with Chinese and foreign media reporters at Wentian Pavilion at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the 16th.
Photo by Wang Jiangbo
Stand out from more than a hundred subjects
According to the plan, China will complete the space station orbit construction through 11 missions this year and next year, including 4 manned flights.
Huang Weifen said that in view of the characteristics of these four missions, the astronaut system selected four flight crews at a time in accordance with the principles of overall planning, new and old matching, inheritance and development, and each crew was composed of three astronauts. The chiefs are all astronauts who have performed manned missions.
In December 2019, the astronaut system completed the selection of crews for the Shenzhou 12 to Shenzhou 15 missions.
Three astronauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo were successfully selected into the Shenzhou 12 flight crew.
The selection work revolves around the four aspects of ideological and political quality, physical, psychological, and knowledge and skills to conduct a comprehensive inspection and evaluation.
"In the selection process, we comprehensively consider factors such as flight experience, requirements for exiting activities to match their respective missions, age, new and old, psychological compatibility and other factors to determine the crew; increase the screening of potential clinical diseases to ensure the astronauts’ health The quality and health status can meet the mission requirements.” Huang Weifen pointed out that the astronaut system also evaluates the emotional stability and crisis handling ability of the astronaut crew based on the characteristics of long-term missions, and assesses their psychological capabilities.
It is not easy to stand out from the selection.
To this end, astronauts systematically planned, designed and implemented 8 categories of training in more than 100 subjects, including basic theoretical training, physical training, psychological training, space environment adaptation training, life-saving survival training, and aerospace professional technical training.
Huang Weifen said that the Astronaut System has also arranged for astronauts to participate in nearly a hundred engineering development and test activities to continuously strengthen its capabilities.
Three challenges test astronauts
In the Shenzhou 12 flight crew, Nie Haisheng had participated in the Shenzhou 6 and Shenzhou 10 manned missions, the astronaut Liu Boming had participated in the Shenzhou 7 manned mission, and the astronaut Tang Hongbo was the first flight.
For this mission, three astronauts will stay in space for about three months.
Huang Weifen introduced that the three astronauts will carry out key technical verifications for the space station’s orbital assembly, construction and operation, including long-term residence, regenerative life support, space material supply, robotic arm operation control, and on-orbit maintenance. A series of experiments and tests such as the research on the physiological behavior of flying human body and the analysis and processing of medical samples.
"Compared with past manned missions, the challenges faced by the astronaut crew this time and in the future are unprecedented." Huang Weifen said frankly that astronauts performing space station missions will face three major challenges.
The first is the challenge of physical fitness; during a manned flight, astronauts have to experience multiple environments such as overweight, vibration, noise, weightlessness, and rotational impact. Only a healthy body and sufficient physical reserves can tolerate and adapt to these environmental factors. Completing the arduous task of maneuvering and exiting the cabin also has higher requirements for the upper limb strength of the astronauts.
The second is the challenge of psychological quality. Astronauts live and work in a small space station environment for a long time, far away from their families and past working environments. Factors such as weightlessness, vibration, and noise can easily cause them to experience irritability and depression.
In addition, important tasks such as rendezvous and docking, exit activities, and the handling of various emergency failures also require astronauts to be calm, determined, and courageous.
Once again is the challenge of knowledge and skills.
The mission of the space station is extremely arduous and complicated, and astronauts need to master a lot of professional knowledge and skills.
Huang Weifen said that these knowledge and skills include the ability to live and work healthily for a long time in orbit, the ability to manually control manned spacecraft, cargo spacecraft, experimental cabins and other aircraft rendezvous and docking, evacuation and cabin transposition capabilities, and perform missions for exiting cabins Ability etc.
Work and life
“Astronauts on the space station can watch videos, listen to music, and play games according to their personal preferences.” Talking about the astronaut’s stay on the space station, Huang Weifen said that astronauts can talk to family, friends, and colleagues on the ground. The local area network sends text messages, pictures, videos, etc. to the ground, and can also watch real-time news broadcasts.
What can the astronauts do if they suffer minor injuries while staying on the space station for up to three months?
Huang Weifen said that there is no need to worry too much about injuries, because the space station is equipped with more than a hundred kinds of medicines and medical equipment, and the astronauts have also undergone intensive medical skills training. The self-rescue ability has been greatly improved, and they can deal with basic diseases and injuries.
It is worth mentioning that the astronaut system also carefully prepared personal belongings "luggage bags" for each astronaut; the astronauts can take photos of their family members, small toys, books and other personal belongings to the sky.
Prior to this, astronaut Wang Yaping of the Shenzhou 10 spacecraft gave space lectures that were impressive.
Will the scene of astronauts teaching in space on the space station reappear in the future?
Huang Weifen said that the Shenzhou 12 mission does not have a live space teaching plan for the time being, but the use of space station resources to carry out space science education is one of the key tasks in the future. The follow-up will combine scenes such as on-orbit experiments, work, and life through video recording, etc. Ways to carry out popular science education to help more people understand space.
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