Who is Gui Haichao?
Gui Haichao will become China’s first civilian sent into space when he, along with a crew on Shenzhou-16, lifts off on Tuesday at 9:31 a.m., The Global Times reported citing the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA). “Payload expert Gui Haichao is a professor at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics,” Chinese Manned Space Agency spokesman Lin Xiqiang told reporters on Monday, according to the AFP news agency.
The mission will be led by Commander Jing Haipeng, who will visit space for the fourth time. Zhu Yangzhu will serve as the flight engineer. The three-member crew will take off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, the agency added. China has always sent astronauts who are part of the People’s Liberation Army. Hence the Shenzhou-16 mission is historic. Gui will be “mainly responsible for the in-orbit operation of space science experimental payloads,” Lin said.
Haichao, 36, is a professor of Spacecraft Dynamics and Control at Beihang University. “He is also the first payload expert to visit the space station. He is tasked with conducting scientific experiments during his stay,” CGTN Global Watch reported on Twitter.
The Shenzhou-16 mission is the first manned spaceflight mission in the application and development stage of the Chinese Space Station, The Global Times reported. The report added that it will include two berths and two evacuation returns.
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Gui Haichao reportedly received his bachelor’s and doctorate degrees in aerospace engineering from Beihang University in 2009 and 2014. He was later admitted to York University. Haichao moved to Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, as a postdoctoral researcher. He only returned to his alma mater in 2017 as an associate professor at the School of Astronautics.
He completed the construction of his third and permanent space station, Tiangong, last year. The final module of the T-shaped Tiangong, whose name means “heavenly palace”, was successfully attached to the central structure in November.
The station carries a number of state-of-the-art scientific equipment, the state news agency Xinhua reported, including “the first space-based cold atomic clock system.” Tiangong is expected to remain in low Earth orbit between 400 and 450 kilometers (250 and 280 miles) above the planet for at least 10 years, fulfilling the ambition of maintaining a long-term human presence in space.
It will be constantly crewed by rotating teams of three astronauts, who will conduct scientific experiments and help test new technologies. While China does not plan to use Tiangong for global cooperation on the scale of the International Space Station, Beijing said it is open to foreign collaboration.
It is not yet clear how extensive that cooperation will be. China has been effectively locked out of the International Space Station since 2011 when the United States banned NASA from engaging with the country.
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