Shenzhou-23 Crew Sends Mid-Autumn Greetings From Orbit

Aboard China’s Tiangong space station some 400 kilometres above Earth, the three astronauts of the Shenzhou-23 crew sent Mid-Autumn Festival greetings to the nation on Friday, wishing the country prosperity and its people family happiness. The message, carried by Xinhua and republished by the People’s Daily, marked the fourth Mid-Autumn Festival since the station’s completion.

“At festival times one misses one’s kin all the more,” mission commander Zhu Yangzhu said. “Though heaven and earth are far apart, our hearts always beat together with our motherland and are closely linked with the people of the whole country.”

A Crew of Distinctions

The Shenzhou-23 mission is notable for the profile of its three members, each drawn from a different astronaut category and each carrying a distinct first. Zhu, on his second flight after Shenzhou-16 in 2023, is the first commander to emerge from China’s third batch of astronauts and is spending his second Mid-Autumn Festival in orbit. Zhang Zhiyuan, a former PLA Air Force first-class pilot, is on his first flight. Li Jiaying, previously a superintendent in the Hong Kong Police Force, is China’s first astronaut from Hong Kong and the first female payload specialist selected under the manned-space programme’s Hong Kong and Macao recruitment drive.

In her greeting, Li invoked both the wider nation and her home city. “Through the porthole, what I linger over most is the myriad lights of the Chinese land, and what I long for most is the full moon shining over Hong Kong,” she said. “Gazing at the bright moon from Tiangong, sharing the same moon across a thousand miles, at this moment we yearn for it all the more.”

Zhang offered a more intimate image for those watching from the ground. “Family, if you see a bright star streaking across the night sky, that is our Tiangong — that is me, missing you,” he said.

Four Months in Orbit

The crew launched aboard Shenzhou-23 late on the night of 24 May and entered Tiangong in the early hours of 25 May, according to Xinhua. As of Friday they had been in orbit about four months. The mission is the seventh crewed flight in the space station’s application-and-development phase and the 40th flight of China’s manned space programme, according to a pre-launch briefing carried by the People’s Daily.

That briefing laid out an ambitious scientific agenda: more than 100 new science and application projects, spanning space life sciences — including “artificial embryos” built from zebrafish and mouse embryos and stem cells — advanced rare-earth permanent-magnet alloys, and in-orbit tests of next-generation space energy-storage batteries. The crew will also conduct spacewalks, transfer cargo, install and recover external payloads, and carry out science outreach.

One crew member is expected to undertake a record-setting one-year on-orbit stay as part of China’s first space human-body research programme. Which astronaut takes on that role was not disclosed at the briefing, which noted it would be determined based on how on-orbit tasks unfold.

A Wider Ambition

Beyond the symbolism of the holiday message, the Shenzhou-23 mission sits within China’s broader push toward a crewed Moon landing before 2030. At the May briefing, space programme spokesperson Zhang Jingbo framed the space station as a proving ground for lunar ambitions, citing its role in cultivating an experienced astronaut corps and in validating technologies such as the new-generation near-Earth crewed transport system, built with an integrated design shared with lunar systems.

China has merged its crewed and uncrewed lunar exploration efforts into a unified “Lunar Exploration Project.” The Chang’e-7 probe has already arrived at the Wenchang launch site and is slated for launch in the second half of the year to survey the lunar south pole.

The selection of Li Jiaying has also carried broader significance for Hong Kong. According to Shenzhen TV’s Direct News, Hong Kong SAR Chief Executive John Lee held a video call with Li on 24 May alongside two bureau secretaries, telling her that her participation reflected “the country’s recognition of you” and “the country’s trust in and support for Hong Kong.” Li completed more than 1,700 class hours across eight categories and more than 200 training subjects before qualifying for the flight, the report said.

What to Watch

The holiday greeting is a familiar ritual of China’s space programme, which has regularly tied orbital milestones to national occasions. What bears watching in the months ahead is the unfolding of the mission’s scientific work — particularly the one-year stay that would test the limits of long-duration human spaceflight — and whether China’s lunar timeline holds. For now, as the crew put it, the same bright moon was shared across a thousand miles.