China will launch the Shenzhou-21 crewed mission to its space station at 11:44 p.m. on Friday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, the China Manned Space Agency announced at a press conference on Thursday.

Click here for CGTN's livestream of the event.

The Shenzhou-21 mission marks the sixth crewed spaceflight during the application and development phase of China's space station and the 37th flight of the country's crewed space program.

The main objectives of the mission are to complete an in-orbit crew rotation with the Shenzhou-20 crew, stay aboard the space station for about six months, conduct space science and application experiments, perform extravehicular activities and cargo transfer tasks, carry out the installation of debris protection devices, and the installation and retrieval of external payloads and equipment, conduct science education and public welfare activities, as well as space payload texts.

After entering orbit, the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft is scheduled to conduct a fast automated rendezvous and docking with the radial port of the Tianhe core module approximately 3.5 hours later, forming a combination of three spacecraft and three modules.

The Shenzhou-21 crew will welcome the Tianzhou-10 space cargo ship and the Shenzhou-22 crewed spaceship during their stay in orbit.

Meet the new crew

The taikonauts Zhang Lu, Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang will carry out the Shenzhou-21 crewed spaceflight mission on Friday.

Zhang Lu, a veteran of the Shenzhou-15 mission, will take the role of mission commander, while Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang, both from the third batch of taikonauts, will be making their first spaceflights.

Zhang will serve as the space pilot, Wu as the flight engineer and Zhang Hongzhang as the payload specialist. They represent the three types of taikonauts currently in service.

Mice experiment in space

The crew will carry out a total of 27 new scientific and application projects during the mission, focusing on key scientific issues across several fields, including space life science and biotechnology, aerospace medicine, space materials science, microgravity fluid physics and combustion, and new space technologies.

Among these, a key experiment will be the first-ever space experiment involving domestic rodents, using four mice – two males and two females, which will be flown aboard the spacecraft and raised in orbit. The primary objective is to study the effects of space conditions such as weightlessness and confinement on the mice's behavior patterns. After the mission, the mice will return to Earth for further scientific analysis, investigating the stress responses and adaptive changes in their multi-organ systems in the space environment.

Pakistani astronaut to enter Chinese space station

The selection of Pakistani astronauts has started after a cooperation agreement on the spaceflight of Pakistani astronaut to the Chinese space station was signed this February.

There will be three selection phases. The preliminary selection work is presently being carried out in Pakistan, while the secondary and final selections will take place in China.

As planned, two Pakistani astronauts will undergo training alongside Chinese astronauts after the final selection, and one will be selected in a short-term spaceflight mission as a payload specialist, who will also conduct scientific experiments in space for Pakistan besides completing the crew's daily tasks.