Astronaut Wang Yaping Plays Guzheng in Space to Celebrate Chinese Lantern Festival
During the 2022 Lantern Festival television program held Tuesday night by Chinese state broadcasting network CCTV, astronaut Wang Yaping, who is still on a space mission, played a song entitled “Molihua” (Jasmine) with a guzheng and sent holiday blessings from the space station.
This is the first time that Chinese astronauts have performed large musical instruments in space. In the interview before her mission, Wang revealed that she would bring a relatively large musical instrument during the flight mission, and that she would demonstrate Chinese culture in the space.
Many Chinese web users wrote comments, including “it’s a melody from the universe,” and “these melodies could only be made in heaven,” while other curious netizens asked: “What else have you brought up to space?”
On October 16, 2021, astronauts Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu rode the Shenzhou-13 manned spacecraft and successfully entered the Tianhe core module. They will stay in orbit for six months during their first stint.
According to the China Manned Space Agency, on the evening of November 7, 2021, Beijing time, Shenzhou-13 astronauts made their first extravehicular activity. On November 8, less than a month after entering space, Wang Yaping completed the first extravehicular activity of Shenzhou-13 astronauts and became the first Chinese woman to perform a spacewalk.
On February 9, 2022, China released the “Blue Book of China’s Space Science and Technology Activities.” In 2021, China’s space launch activities continued to make major breakthroughs. A total of 55 launch missions were carried out throughout the year, and 115 spacecrafts were launched. The total mass of launched spacecrafts reached a new record, reaching 191.19 tons, an increase of 85.5% year-on-year.
The Blue Book also shows that in 2022, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation plans to arrange more than 50 space launch missions and launch more than 140 spacecrafts. In the whole year, the manned spaceflight project will carry out six launch missions, with the Tianhe core module serving as the control center and the Wentian and Mengtian laboratory modules as the main experimental platforms. The space station, which has been cared for all year round, will be fully built, and the Long March 6A carrier rocket and multi-type commercial carrier rockets will make their first flight.
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