China's Shenzhou XIX astronauts deliver New Year greetings from space

BEIJING -- China's Shenzhou XIX crew aboard the orbiting Tiangong space station sent their New Year greetings in a video on Tuesday, anticipating more breakthroughs in the country's manned space program in 2025.

"Today is the last day of 2024, and I hope everyone joins me in being full of energy, forging ahead and sprinting into 2025," said Cai Xuzhe, commander of the Shenzhou XIX mission, while he was on a treadmill.

After introducing a recent experiment related to the effects of force on bones and muscles during exercise, astronaut Song Lingdong expressed optimism about the space laboratory's many potential achievements in the coming year. He wished everyone a bountiful harvest and endless good fortune in 2025.

Astronaut Wang Haoze demonstrated a small in-module intelligent spacecraft that could move and capture images in response to voice commands. Wang explained that, with future upgrades, it would be able to perform tasks such as in-module inspections, inventory management and product status monitoring.

The Shenzhou XIX crew has been in orbit for two months and is set to carry out a series of space-science experiments and technical tests, as well as extravehicular activities in 2025.