China will send its first civilian astronaut into space as part of a crewed mission to the Tiangong space station on Tuesday as it pursues its ambitious plans for a manned lunar landing by 2030. The world\u2019s second-largest economy has invested billions of dollars in its military-run space programme, trying to catch up with the United States and Russia after years of belatedly matching their milestones. Until now, all Chinese astronauts sent into space have been part of the People\u2019s Liberation Army. Gui Haichao is a professor at Beijing\u2019s Beihang University, and will manage scientific experiments on the station during the mission, China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) spokesperson Lin Xiqiang told reporters on Monday. His mission will \u201ccarry out large-scale, in-orbit experiments… in the study of novel quantum phenomena, high-precision space time-frequency systems, the verification of general relativity, and the origin of life,\u201d Lin said. \u201cI\u2019ve always had this dream,\u201d Gui told a press conference on Monday. His university said he hailed from an \u201cordinary family\u201d in the southwest province of Yunnan. He had \u201cfirst felt the attraction of aerospace\u201d listening to the news of China\u2019s first man in space, Yang Liwei, on campus radio in 2003, the institution said in a post on social media. Gui\u2019s addition is \u201cparticularly significant\u201d, independent analyst Chen Lan said, given previous missions only carried astronauts trained as pilots responsible for more technical tasks and not specialist scientists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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