Islamabad:
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Friday that Pakistan, in collaboration with China, would send its first inhabited mission to the Chinese space station.
Addressing a ceremony after witnessing the exchange of a cooperation agreement between the space of Pakistan and the Commission for Research on the Higher Atmosphere (Supparco) and the Spatial Agency inhabited in China, the Prime Minister declared that it was another wonderful gesture of the Chinese government to further deepen bilateral cooperation in this area.
Under the agreement, two Pakistani astronauts will follow training at the Center des Astronauts de China. A selected astronaut must be trained as a scientific specialist in the payload, preparing for specialized research on the Chinese space station (CSS). The process of selecting astronauts will be completed by 2026, in order to fly in a future mission according to CSS planning.
The first mission of the national astronaut to the CSS will imply leading scientific experiences in various fields, in particular biological and medical sciences, aerospace, applied physics, fluid mechanics, spatial radiation, ecology, materials of materials, studies of microgravity and astronomy.
The space agency inhabited in China said in a press release that the two parties will use about a year to complete the selection process before sending the Pakistani candidates to China to receive complete and systematic training. Friday, the details of the selection process have not yet been disclosed, according to daily China.
After the Pakistani trainees have lent themselves, one of them accompanies Chinese astronauts to the Tiangong space station and will spend a short-term stay inside the colossal spacecraft, orbit around the earth about 400 kilometers above the ground, noted the agency.
To date, the highest altitude that a Pakistanis has ever reached is around 87.4 km, by an polar adventurous woman and artist Namira Salim during a 55 -minute suborbital trip organized by the American aerospace company Virgin Galactic on October 6, 2023.
It is of public notoriety that the Karman line, an altitude of 100 km above sea level, is the beginning of space and the orbital flight threshold.
The signing of the cooperation agreement has created new opportunities and established a model for more developing countries to engage in an inhabited international collaboration.
He should inspire nations around the world to join hands to explore the mysteries of the universe and collectively forge a new chapter in the progress of shared interests for the benefit of all humanity, according to the press release.
Since the launch of the first Tiangong component in April 2021, Chinese space managers have launched the idea of choosing and sending foreigners to the space station.
The main project managers such as Yang Liwei, the first Chinese space and now an assistant chief planner of the country’s inhabited space flights, and Lin Xiqiang, deputy chief of the inhabited space agency in China, said on several occasions that China was open to international cooperation on its space station, including flights equipped with other countries.
Chen Shanguang, another senior official of the space -haired space program in China, said in February 2023 that “several countries told China that they hoped to send their astronauts to Tiangong station”.
Tiangong is one of the most important and most advanced structures ever deployed on the earth’s orbit and is the only operational space station independently built by a single nation.
The Chinese outpost has three permanent parts – a basic moddule and two scientific capsules – and is regularly connected to the crew invited to Seuverraal and the freight spatials. It now weighs more than 100 tonnes and should operate for at least 10 years.
Until now, eight crews have been sent to Man The Space Station, including the outgoing team of Shenzhou XIX, which arrived at the outpost at the end of October and is expected to return at the end of April or early May.
In August 2017, Samantha Cristoforeti of Italy and Matthias Maurer of Germany, both of the European space agency, participated in a survival exercise at sea, organized by the center of astronaut of China, in the waters off the coastal city of Yantai, Shandong province.
They were the first foreign astronauts to participate in training in China.
