Lessons from low earth orbit

Chinese astronauts aboard the Tiangong space station hosted an open science lecture on Wednesday afternoon for students.

At the beginning of the transmission, which was livestreamed worldwide by China Media Group, the astronauts on the Shenzhou XIV mission — Senior Colonel Chen Dong, Senior Colonel Liu Yang and Senior Colonel Cai Xuzhe — introduced their sleeping and living quarters and scientific apparatus inside the Wentian lab module. The module was joined to Tiangong in July.

The crew then carried out experiments to demonstrate the unique physical properties of microgravity. They also demonstrated sampling procedures on rice and thale cress, a small flowering plant that belongs to the mustard family, which is being grown for testing on the station.

The 50-minute lecture started at 4:01 pm, and astronauts later answered questions from students, which ranged from how to become an astronaut to what kinds of plants will be taken into space aboard future spaceflights.

Millions of primary and middle school students across China watched the televised event, which was co-hosted by the China Manned Space Agency, Ministry of Education and other government departments.

Nearly 400 students from Beijing, Shandong province's Heze city, Henan province's Zhengzhou city and Yunnan province's Dali city were present at ground class venues, according to the manned space agency.

This was the third lecture in the Tiangong Class series, China's first extraterrestrial lecture series, which aims to popularize astroscience. It was also the first time the Shenzhou XIV mission crew gave a lecture.

The crew have already spent more than four months aboard the station and have performed two spacewalks. They are due to remain in the station until early December, when the Shenzhou XV crew will take over.

Their peers on the Shenzhou XIII mission, who remained in orbit from the mid-October of last year until mid-April of this year, broadcast the first two lectures in the series from Tiangong.