China has named the three astronauts set to fly to the Tiangong space station at a pre-launch press conference one day ahead of the Oct. 31 flight of the Shenzhou 21 mission.

Astronauts Zhang Lu, Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang will be aboard the Shenzhou 21 spacecraft, currently scheduled to launch on a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert at 11:44 a.m. EDT Friday (1544 GMT, or 11:44 p.m. Beijing Time).

The mission will be commanded by Zhang Lu, 48, who was a crew member of the Shenzhou 15 mission which launched in November 2022 and returned to Earth in June 2023. "After two years, being able to once again represent my country and carry out the Shenzhou-21 mission fills me with excitement and anticipation;” Zhang told reporters at Jiuquan on Oct. 3

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