It was the seventh mission to the permanently inhabited Chinese space station since it was completed in 2022.
Missions on China’s Shenzhou-21 spacecraft involve trios of astronauts on six-month stays in space, with veteran astronauts increasingly replaced by younger faces. First-timers Zhang Hongzhang, 39, and Wu Fei, 32 - China’s youngest astronaut to be sent to space - were picked to participate in the program in 2020.
