China Sends 2 Young Astronauts, 1 Commander, And 4 Lab Mice to Space Station Tiangong

China’s Tiangong space station is the centerpiece of its multibillion-dollar space program. By the decade’s end, Beijing plans to send astronauts to the moon and build a solid lunar base. On Friday, October 31, the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft carried Zhang Hongzhang and Wu Fei, the first-time astronauts aged 39 and 32, respectively. Both are led by Commander Zhang Lu, who spent time in space two years ago for the 2022 Shenzhou-15 mission. After 2022, this was the seventh mission to the permanently inhabited Chinese space station, ‘Heavenly Palace’ or Tiangong. 

Men And Mice: China’s Shenzhou-21 Mission

🚀👏3-2-1 Ignition! China launched the Shenzhou XXI crewed spaceship on Friday, sending three astronauts to its orbiting @CNSpaceStation on a six-month mission. The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest… pic.twitter.com/aOkZy7f7RB — Chinese Space Station (@CNSpaceStation) October 31, 2025

The youngest astronauts were picked to participate in the programme in 2020. Each mission involves trios of astronauts on six-month stays in space. The veteran astronauts are also being replaced by young faces. The talented astronauts will be conducting a total of 27 experiments in fields such as biotechnology, space medicine, and materials science. On the other hand, the Shenzhou-20 astronauts are set to return to Earth in the coming days. 

What’s more? This is the very first time China has sent four black lab mice to the space station. The small mammals will be monitored to study how weightlessness and confinement affect their behavioral patterns. Additionally, they will be used in experiments on reproduction in low Earth orbit. 

Biannual launches are standard norms for the Shenzhou programme. In recent years, it has achieved new milestones with the deployment of Chinese astronauts born in the 1990s. The rapid advances by China have sparked alarm bells in several other countries, like Washington. The programme also plans to train and send the first foreign astronaut, from Pakistan, to Tiangong next year.