The Long March 2F Y-17 Carrier Rocket will carry the Shenzhou 17 crew into space, and it is the safest and most reliable rocket that the country's manned space missions have seen to date. Sun Ye has more. 

SUN YE, Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center "Going up from here, the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, it will be the 21st launch of China's sole manned carrier rocket, the Long March 2F carrier rocket. And if you ask for its biggest feature: it's safe, it's reliable, and it's getting more so."

The rocket's reliability index has exceeded 0.9896, allowing for only 1 glitch in 100 launches. Its safety index stands at 0.99996, which means that for every 100,000 glitches, it permits only four unsuccessful rescue measures.

This model has never made errors in sending taikonauts to space, but rocket engineers have continually improved safety measures.

XIONG TIANCI, Engineer, Overall Department, China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology "The escape system is unique to the Long March 2F rocket, designed to evacuate astronauts and spacecraft from danger zones in extreme situations. Although this system has never been used in actual missions, we have continuously improved it. This includes an adjustment we made to the ignition direction for the escape system. Now, we can intelligently control the selection of direction by considering wind direction before launch, which effectively adds more options and improves reliability."

Twenty years ago in October, the Long March 2F Y-5 rocket put China's first taikonaut Yang Liwei into space.

ZHANG ZHI, Chief Designer, Carrier Rocket System, China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology "For Shenzhou 5, which was part of the Long March 2F Y-5 mission, I was there at the scene as the Commander Zero 2. Over the years, we've been working on the same things: to make rockets more reliable, safer, and more comfortable."

Twenty years later, as China regularly conducts two crewed missions to the China Space Station each year, rocket engineers continue to work with the same dedication. The rocket responsible for carrying the Shenzhou 17 crew to the Tiangong has undergone 25 new improvements compared to its predecessor that launched in May. These include improvements related to safety and reliability, as well as enhanced contingency plans and launch procedures. SY, CGTN, Jiuquan.