The crew list of the Shenzhou 18 manned spacecraft has been announced, and the three astronauts have met with Chinese and foreign media, they are Ye Guangfu (commander), Li Cong, Li Guangsu, and the beautiful astronaut Li Jing, who was speculated by the media, was not selected.
It is particularly worth mentioning that the three astronauts this time are all post-80s, among which the more familiar commander Ye Guangfu was born in September 1980 and is 43 years old this year. The other two were in October 1989 and July 1987 respectively, and the youngest Li Cong was only 34 years old, which was already considered "young" in the astronaut team.
Prior to this, the mainland's astronaut crews were generally older, with the average age of Shenzhou 12 being 52 years old and Shenzhou 15 reaching 53 years old. This is because the first batch of astronauts on the mainland were all selected from among the outstanding pilots of the Air Force, and they were already in their 30s when they were selected, and later after a long period of training, it was not until the Tiangong space station was launched into the sky that many people got the opportunity to go out, and their age was naturally not young.
Now the situation is very different, the first phase of the construction of the continental space station has been completed, the in-orbit residence has been normalized, and every six months there will be three astronauts in the spacecraft to complete the rotation, so the demand for astronauts has greatly increased.
This time, Li Cong and Li Guangsu were both Air Force pilots, and they entered the third batch of astronauts through selection in September 2020, and they got the opportunity to go to space in only 3 and a half years. In the same situation as them, Tang Shengjie and Jiang Xinlin of Shenzhou 17 were in the same situation, which was unimaginable in the past.
However, after the announcement of the crew, many people were still a little surprised. Before the list was announced, many self-media claimed that the good-looking beautiful astronaut Li Jing would be selected for Shenzhou 18, which was indeed very exciting, but in the end it fell short. The other two female astronauts in the mainland, Wang Yaping and Liu Yang, are of course also quite good-looking, and they have taken Shenzhou 13 and Shenzhou 14 into space respectively, which is a good story. But in the subsequent Shenzhou 15, 16, 17, and 18, the crews of the 4 consecutive missions were all male, and I have to say that it is a bit of a "yang flourishing and yin declining" feeling.
According to the usual practice, Wang Yayang and Liu Yang need a period of recovery time after returning to Earth, and it is reasonable that they were not selected for Shenzhou 18. But why did Li Jing, who had been very vocal before, fail to make the trip? The reason is still the arduousness of the Shenzhou 18 mission and the particularity of Li Jing's identity.
Li Jing was born in Qingdao, Shandong Province in June 1978 and is 45 years old this year. She graduated from Southeast University and received her Ph.D. from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2009, and is currently the chief researcher, chief engineer and doctoral supervisor of the Laboratory of Millimeter and Submillimeter Wave Technology at the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Li Jing's research interests are terahertz superconductivity detection, superconducting electronics and radio astronomy, which are closely related to the scientific research and experiments carried out by the space station.
You should be able to see from Li Jing's resume: she is not a pilot, has never flown an airplane, and has never joined the army, but is an authentic female scientist. In fact, there are 18 astronauts in the third batch of astronauts in the mainland, and there is indeed a woman among them, as for who this woman is, Ren Ma Jun has not found public information, and it is difficult to say whether it is Li Jing or not. But from the perspective of Li Jing's scientific research field, the possibility is relatively large. If this female astronaut is really Li Jing, she can only work as a payload expert, not as an astronaut pilot and space flight engineer.
The tasks of these three types of astronauts are different. Among the third batch of astronauts on the mainland, there are 7 astronauts, 7 astronaut flight engineers, and 4 payload specialists. Space pilots and space flight engineers are mainly responsible for directly manipulating and managing spacecraft, as well as conducting related technical tests. Payload specialists are mainly responsible for the on-orbit operation of payloads for space science experiments.
The selection method for the three categories of astronauts is also different. Aerospace pilots are selected from among the pilots on active duty in the Air Force, aerospace flight engineers are selected from among engineers and technicians engaged in aerospace engineering and related fields, and payload specialists are selected from scientific researchers in the field of space science research and application of manned space engineering.
In the mainland's previous manned space missions, only Gui Haichao of Shenzhou-16 was a payload expert, Zhu Yangzhu was a space flight engineer, and the rest were all aerospace pilots and air force pilots. At this time, everyone may wonder again, why are there payload experts and flight engineers on Shenzhou 16, and the Shenzhou 17 and 18 behind are all space pilots again?
Or because of the different nature of the task. In the ongoing Shenzhou-17 mission, an important mission for astronauts is to carry out the first experimental extravehicular maintenance operation of the space station, and the object to be repaired is the solar wing of the Tianhe core module. There is now a lot of space debris in space, including space junk from abandoned spacecraft, and naturally occurring micrometeorites. Those large fragments can be detected and actively dodged, but countless small fragments cannot be dodged, only hard bars.
The continental space station is a long-running spacecraft, and it is inevitable that it will be hit by tiny particles in space. During the preliminary inspection, it was found that the solar wings of the space station were repeatedly hit by tiny particles in space, causing minor damage. Although the power generation performance is still satisfactory, the solar wing needs to be repaired on a trial basis for the sake of prevention and validation technology. This kind of repair requires a long time out of the capsule, which is very challenging, and is suitable for the astronaut to complete, and the payload specialist is certainly not suitable.
Therefore, at 21:35 on December 21, astronauts Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie, and Jiang Xinlin worked closely together to carry out a seven-and-a-half-hour out-of-cabin activity, and successfully completed the established tasks such as the solar wing repair test of the Tianhe core module.
When it comes to the Shenzhou 18 mission, the astronauts have to do different things. In addition to some daily tasks and 6 out-of-cabin tasks of the payload cargo airlock, 2~3 out-of-cabin activities should be carried out, and on the basis of the existing space debris protection measures of the space station, debris protection and reinforcement devices should be installed on the pipelines, cables and key equipment outside the cabin, and extravehicular inspections should be carried out according to the situation to further ensure the safety of the space station.
To put it bluntly, this task is space debris defense, which is a step further than the repair of damaged solar wings of Shenzhou 17. This shows that the threat of space debris impact faced by the continental space station is quite severe, and after a period of operation, the original protective measures are likely to be considered unable to fully protect the space station.
Why do small space debris make our space station feel like a big enemy? Because their speed is so fast, the relative speed with the space station can reach several kilometers or even more than ten kilometers per second, you must know that the speed of the AK47 rifle is only 710 meters per second, and the muzzle velocity of large-caliber artillery is only 900 meters. seconds, and the speed of those space debris is about 10 times that of artillery shells, if it hits an unprotected position on the space station, it can easily penetrate the shell, destroy equipment, cause serious consequences, and even affect the personal safety of astronauts.
The main robotic arm of the International Space Station, Canada Arm 2, was hit by high-speed space debris and was punched a significant hole. On November 15, 2021, Russia conducted an anti-satellite test, and the destruction of the satellite produced a large amount of space debris, when seven astronauts of the International Space Station had to take refuge in the spacecraft, which shows the great threat of space debris.
So how can you defend against space debris at such a high speed? It is obviously impossible to use heavy armor, the weight is too great. The more mature technology is to use "gap armor", with two or more layers of armor plates, leaving a certain gap in the middle, when the fragments penetrate the first layer of armor, fragmentation and dispersion will occur, the impact force is greatly reduced, and it is not easy to penetrate the back armor.
The astronauts of Shenzhou 18 are likely to install similar protective devices to ensure that key parts can resist the direct impact of space debris. The task is daunting, with a lot of equipment to carry, a long installation work outside the cabin, and a tour of the entire space station after installation to see where it is weak, what is damaged, and so on.
Such a heavy and risky task obviously requires better physical strength and extravehicular skills for space pilots to complete, so Shenzhou 18 sent 3 pilot-born space pilots in one go, and they are absolutely capable of doing it with their abilities. And the female payload expert will have to wait for the next Shenzhou 19 mission at least to board the space station.