China's Shenzhou-23 astronauts send National Day greetings from space station

BEIJING, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- The Shenzhou-23 astronauts aboard China's Tiangong space station sent video greetings to their motherland on Thursday, which is China's National Day and the 77th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Commander Zhu Yangzhu and his crewmates Zhang Zhiyuan and Li Jiaying, or Lai Ka-ying in Cantonese, delivered their wishes for the country and its space program together as the station, about 400 km above Earth, flew over China.

"When we look at Earth from the space station, that brilliantly lit land is the motherland we miss day and night," said Li, the first astronaut from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to travel to space.

The three astronauts were launched aboard the Shenzhou-23 spaceship late on May 24 and have been in orbit for more than four months. They are in good condition, having completed in-orbit crew rotation with the Shenzhou-21 astronauts, repaired the station's solar panels in a spacewalk and deployed application payloads outside the station.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of China's space program. Remarkable milestones include the launch of the country's first satellite, Dongfanghong-1, the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System that offers global services, the Chang'e lunar missions, the Tianwen-1 Mars mission, the Tiangong space station and the steady advance of crewed lunar exploration project.

"We can never forget that in deserts, mountains and on islands, a group of people have gazed at the stars and kept striving, generation after generation, for 70 years, creating the glory of China's space program," said Zhang, who is on his first spaceflight.

Zhu, from China's third batch of astronauts, is on his second spaceflight after the Shenzhou-16 mission in 2023, and is commanding a long-duration mission for the first time. "The 'baton of history' has been passed to us. We will certainly run this leg well, and keep safeguarding and building our home in space," he said.