16 June 2021
Taikonauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo are going to fly the Shenzhou 12 human spaceflight mission. Nie, the most experienced among the three, was in the Shenzhou 6 mission in 2005 and the Shenzhou 10 mission in 2013. It will be Liu's 2nd spaceflight, as he once participated in the Shenzhou 7 mission in 2008, which featured a landmark spacewalk. Tang will be a new comer to space. He became a member of the 2nd batch of taikonauts in 2010. Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu are the backup crew. The SZ-12 mission is expected to launch on 17 June at 9:22 BJT (01:22 UTC) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre.
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Replay of the press conference with crew announcement