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Happy Lunar New Year 2026!
China's Shenzhou 21 crew rang in the Year of the Horse with an impressive celebration aboard the nation's Tiangong Space Station this week. The three astronauts (or "taikonauts," a term that borrows from the Mandarin word for space, (太空), or "taikong") celebrated with a special feast, a party and traditional calligraphy. But the crew went one step further this year, filming a zero-gravity music video that celebrates the nation's many recent spaceflight achievements — and it's a banger.
The song in the music video is sung by Shenzhou 21 commander Zhang Lu and features the refrain "let the five-star red flag fly high in space." It's sung over a montage of recent Chinese rocket launches, spacecraft docking at Tiangong, spacewalks and science experiments conducted on the orbital laboratory.
Aside from the music video, the three taikonauts beamed down greetings. Shenzhou 21 flight engineer Wu Fei, celebrating his first spaceflight, sent a Lunar New Year message to people on Earth below.
"The Year of the Horse calls for the vigor of a galloping steed. Let us keep striving for our dreams and working for happiness," Wu said, according to Xinhua. "I wish you a safe and smooth journey ahead, and a life that gets better and better."
Lunar New Year has been celebrated for thousands of years, predominately throughout Asia. During this holiday season, which lasts until the night of the first full moon to follow the holiday (falling on on March 3 this year), families and loved ones gather together to exchange gifts, eat traditional holiday meals and pay respects to their ancestors.
Many areas also celebrate Lunar New Year with fireworks and parades featuring colorful dancers dressed as dragons or lions.
2026 welcomes in the Year of the Horse, the seventh animal in the twelve-year cycle of animals in the Chinese zodiac. Each year in the cycle is believed to represent characteristics of those animals, and people born in those years are believed by some to represent the respective animal's traits.
According to ChineseNewYear.net, the horse represents confidence and responsibility, and a fierce independence streak. People born in the Year of the Horse are believed to be fit and intelligent, seeking out tasks that require physical and mental exertion.
China's space agency and the Shenzhou 21 crew have plenty of reason to celebrate. Late last year, the three astronauts were left "stranded" aboard Tiangong without a safe ride home after a piece of suspected space debris struck one of the two spacecraft docked at the station. The Shenzhou 21 crew had just arrived to relieve the previous crew, Shenzhou 20.
Shenzhou 20 ultimately came down on Shenzhou 21's spacecraft, and China's space agency launched an uncrewed capsule up to Tiangong to serve as a lifeboat for the three Shenzhou 21 taikonauts, ending the nearly 10-day emergency.
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