On April 23, the Shenzhou 20 astronaut crew debuted at the Wentian Pavilion of Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center: Chen Dong serves as the commander, and Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie are both the third batch of astronauts. On the 24th, they rushed to space and embarked on a new journey.

　　"On April 24, 1970, on the hot land under our feet, China's first artificial earth satellite, Dongfanghong-1, was successfully launched, opening the prelude to the Chinese people's exploration of space." Chen Dong said emotionally, "This day 55 years later is also the 10th "China Space Day". Our crew must follow the footsteps of our ancestors, keep in mind the trust of our ancestors, and run the space station well in the stage of running the space station!"

　　Chen Dong: From a young novice to being a commander again

　　Nine years ago, Chen Dong pursued the dream of the sky for the first time and jointly carried out the Shenzhou 11 mission with his command Chang Jing Haipeng. "I'll ask you if you feel good?" "I feel good!" Their conversations while flying were flying were blowing the Internet. At that time, Chen Dong was still a young novice, and his heart was filled with infinite longing for the universe.

　　Three years ago, Chen Dong, as the commander, jointly carried out the Shenzhou 14 mission with his teammates Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe, realizing his long-cherished wish of "returning to space and flying to a new height for the motherland." He went on the battle again, with a little more perseverance in his eyes, and he showed calmness in his words and words. He also became the first astronaut in my country to exceed 200 days in orbit.

　　Now, Chen Dong is once again the commander, and is about to lead two young astronauts to meet a new challenge. What time brought him was not only the several silver threads on his temples, but also the calmness of lifting weights.

　　When he was selected into the Shenzhou 20th crew in 2024, Chen Dong had a deeper understanding of mission training.

　　The space station has entered the stage of application and development, and the precise implementation of scientific experiments and the maintenance and protection of internal and external equipment have become the main tasks.

　　He anchored his training focus on operational accuracy, psychological stability, team collaboration tacit understanding and emergency response. Because the improvement of these abilities requires the accumulation of little things in daily training to ultimately achieve a leap from quantitative change to qualitative change.

　　As a commander, Chen Dong considered more about doing a good job of passing and helping young teammates grow up quickly. As soon as the passenger group was established, he had an in-depth discussion with the teacher team and formulated a personalized training plan based on the characteristics of the passenger group and the task. This model not only greatly improves training efficiency, but also fully stimulates the subjective initiative of training.

　　Emergency and fault handling training are the top priority of training. During normal task training, they often randomly interspersed with fault training to improve their emergency response capabilities. Each time the fault is dealt with, a detailed review is conducted, and the experience and lessons are learned are summarized to form a closed-loop improvement mechanism of "training, reviewing, and optimization". "Only by preparing more hands on the ground can the sky be able to handle it with ease; only by exerting all the strength on the ground can space respond effectively," said Chen Dong.

　　After a long period of training, they have a very tacit understanding between each other. Even when they are running, the three of them can "resonate at the same frequency". "With three heads and six arms, we will work together; we will perform our duties and stand on our own. We will work together to complete the task." Chen Dong is full of confidence in the team.

　　During the three missions, Chen Dong personally experienced the development process of China's space station from scratch and from construction to application. "There is no 'satisfactor' in the dictionary, only 'higher'. I will visit the Space House again with the blessings of the motherland and the people, with the determination to complete the mission, with the desire to enter space, with the support of my teammates and the ground." He said.

　　Chen Zhongrui: From thinking about driving a tractor to dream-realizing space station

　　In October 1984, Chen Zhongrui was born in Chendazhao Village, Sangcun Township, Hua County, Henan Province.

　　When he was a child, Chen Zhongrui's dream was to be a tractor driver and show his obsession and talent for mechanical operation. "This is a natural feeling, the more complicated the things you operate, the more excited you are," he said.

　　During the summer vacation of the third year of junior high school, Chen Zhongrui heard that he could apply for the Air Force pilot in the college entrance examination, and immediately became interested. Isn’t it more impressive to fly a plane than to drive a tractor! However, he also heard that this requires high physical fitness, otherwise it would be difficult to be selected. So in three years of high school, Chen Zhongrui gave all his spare time to the sports field, got up early every day to run, practiced with students with sports talents, and learned martial arts by themselves to strengthen their bodies...

　　Zhao Fei's physical examination once made him nervous. "There is a test that I used bamboo sticks to scratch the skin a few times to see the reaction. In order to reduce the sensitivity of the skin, I scratched myself every day. In fact, I still don't know if it's better to make red marks or not." He said that he was trying his best at that time.

　　In September 2003, Chen Zhongrui entered the former Air Force Changchun Flight Academy as he wished and became a flight cadet.

　　On October 15, 2003, the news that Yang Liwei flew into space on the Shenzhou V manned spacecraft excited the whole country. This was the first time Chen Zhongrui heard about the profession of astronauts. On a snowy day not long later, he received a notice to meet in the auditorium. When he found out that it was Yang Liwei who came to give a report. Seeing Yang Liwei's agile posture in the team, he felt excited.

　　Ten years later, Chen Zhongrui once again had an intersection with the astronauts. "When Shenzhou 10 returned to Earth, I received an order to clear the airspace to welcome the astronauts home." This mission made him very excited, and he also wanted to fly higher and rush out of the atmosphere.

　　In 2018, the selection of the third batch of astronauts in China was officially launched. The once unattainable space dream may be right in front of you, and Chen Zhongrui signed up without hesitation. Two years later, he was successfully selected.

　　At this time, the Chinese space station mission has been launched, and the two-year flight missions have brought more opportunities and greater challenges. Time is tight, tasks are heavy, and training intensity is high. They have to complete the study and assessment of hundreds of courses in eight categories within more than two years.

　　Chen Zhongrui tried his best to finish the hard work of basic theory learning, but unexpectedly encountered difficulties in operation. When he was a pilot, he was used to memorizing the operating manual and then leaving it to operate. But as an astronaut, not only should I compare the manual step by step, but the crew also should compare the manual division of labor and cooperation. One person reads the manual, one person operates, and one person reviews and checks to ensure that every step and every operation is accurate. "This is a big change for me." He gradually changed his thinking and operating habits he had developed before, and eliminated the muscle memories he had been engraved on his body.

　　Chen Zhongrui is full of expectations for the upcoming space life: "When I was a child, I liked the smell of diesel with the roar, and later became a fighter pilot flying in the blue sky of my motherland. Now, I look forward to entering the Chinese space station as a space pilot and wandering in the vast universe."

　　Wang Jie: From rural shepherd boy to aerospace engineer

　　Wang Jie was born in a small village in Urat front banner, Bayannur City, Inner Mongolia. His family makes a living by half farming and semi-herdship, planting sunflowers, corn and wheat, and raising dozens of sheep.

　　When he was a child, his peers loved to play with mud and dig bird nests, but Wang Jie liked to help his family work. He would go into the mountains to herd sheep, and carry stones and sand with the adults. When he went to elementary school, he went home from school to work after he finished his homework and gained a sense of accomplishment.

　　After graduating from elementary school, Wang Jie's parents determined that he was a student and tried every means to transfer him from a rural school to Urat Qianqi No. 5 Middle School. At the age of 13, he left his hometown for the first time and came to the county town and became a borrowing student.

　　On October 16, 2003, astronaut Yang Liwei landed steadily on the Shenzhou V manned spacecraft at Siziwang Banner, Inner Mongolia. At this time, Wang Jie sat in a classroom 400 kilometers away from the return point, working hard to keep the top 20 in the grade. Seeing the political teacher write this news on the blackboard, he felt mysterious and sacred, and had curiosity and longing for manned space flight.

　　In his third year of high school, Chen Yijian, chief designer of the "Flying Leopard" fighter bomber, came to the school to give a report. Wang Jie was deeply inspired by Chen Yijian's vivid deeds and outstanding contributions. When filling out the application form in the college entrance examination, he did not hesitate to fill out Shenyang University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in the application form and was successfully admitted. In 2011, Wang Jie was admitted to Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics to study for a postgraduate degree in mechanics. He then got the opportunity to study in the direction of master's and doctoral degree and continued to further his studies in the direction of engineering mechanics. In 2016, he entered the Fifth Academy of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and was assigned to a spacecraft platform as a whole, responsible for vibration isolation reduction and related work.

　　In 2018, the third batch of astronaut selection work was launched and the selection scope was expanded: in addition to selecting from Air Force pilots, aerospace flight engineers and payload experts must also be selected from relevant scientific research institutes and universities. With the idea of ​​"try it out", Wang Jie signed up, but unexpectedly passed the selection process all the way through the layers of selection and officially became one of the third batch of astronauts in my country in September 2020.

　　More challenges are also coming as expected.

　　After 3 kilometers of physical tests, Wang Jie landed behind while running, and was soon "into a circle" by the same group of astronauts from the Air Force pilot. When he learned movements with the instructor, he found that some muscle groups that were rarely used in the past were difficult to mobilize; simulating weightless sink out-of-cabin activity training was a severe test for him. After a few hours, he felt the feeling of "hands trembled so hard that he couldn't hold the chopsticks" every time. To this end, he carefully planned his physical exercise every day, and asked his teammates and teachers for experience, and focused on training upper limb strength, especially grip strength. His physical test scores are getting higher and higher, and his operations are becoming more and more standard.

　　"Slow-to-action" is also a big problem. As an engineer, Wang Jie often couldn't help but think about the principle behind the operation steps. When he was still analyzing the research manual, his teammates who were a space pilot had already completed the operation. This is the difference in thinking and operation experience caused by different professions. In order to keep pace with his teammates, he often practices himself. For example, the manual rendezvous and docking, known as "Tied a Needle in Space" is called "Training a Needle in a Thousand Miles of Space". He first practices basic operations, and then practices conditionally to slowly stabilize his grades.

　　After more than four years of hard training, Wang Jie finally wrote "Shenzhou 20 Astronaut" in front of his name. "The opportunities are left to those who work hard, and the harder they work, the more opportunities they have."

　　(Zhankang reporter Fu Yifei He Peixiong)

[Editor in charge: Zhu Jiaqi]