Chinese astronauts to give lecture from space

Crew members of China's Shenzhou XIII mission are scheduled to give a space-based lecture on Thursday afternoon from the orbiting Tiangong space station to students around the world, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

The agency said on Monday that the three astronauts — Major General Zhai Zhigang, Senior Colonel Wang Yaping and Senior Colonel Ye Guangfu — will begin the first lecture of the Tiangong Class, or Heavenly Palace Class, at 3:40 pm Thursday. The lecture will be broadcast live to audiences around the globe.

The astronauts will show viewers how they live and work inside the station and then conduct some scientific experiments to show students how gravity works differently in space. They will also answer viewers' questions at the end of the livestream event, the agency said.

Groups of students in Beijing, Nanning in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and Wenchuan in Sichuan province, as well as the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, will take part in video communications during the lecture, it noted.

The agency said last week that the coming lecture "will mark the launch of the Tiangong Class, China's first extraterrestrial lecture series to popularize space science". It added that such lectures will be based on the country's manned spaceflights and will be presented by Chinese astronauts. Featuring interactive teaching, the activities will be mainly targeted at youngsters.

The Shenzhou XIII mission was launched on Oct 16 by a Long March 2F carrier rocket that blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China's Gobi Desert, with the crew soon entering the Tiangong station. They are scheduled to spend six months working in the station, making it China's longest manned space mission.

The coming event will be the second time Wang will engage in a space lecture.

In June 2013, she took part in the Shenzhou X mission that lasted nearly 15 days. During that mission, she carried out the nation's first space-based lecture inside an experimental space station module to more than 60 million Chinese students. The event made China the second country, following the United States, to hold a space-based class for students.