Chinese Shenzhou Craft Launches On Key Space Mission

BBC News, By Jonathan Amos, Science correspondent, 31 October 2011

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It will be a couple of days before Shenzhou 8 is in

a position to attempt the docking

CHINA HAS TAKEN THE NEXT STEP IN ITS QUEST TO BECOME A MAJOR SPACE POWER WITH THE LAUNCH OF THE UNMANNED SHENZHOU 8 VEHICLE.

The spacecraft rode a Long March 2F rocket into orbit where it will attempt to rendezvous and dock with the Tiangong-1 lab, launched in September.

It would be the first time China has joined two space vehicles together.

The capability is required if the country is to carry through its plan to build a space station by about 2020.

The Long March carrier rocket lifted away from the Jiuquan spaceport in the Gobi Desert at 05:58, Tuesday (21:58 GMT Monday). TV cameras relayed the ascent to orbit.

Shenzhou separated from the rocket's upper-stage about nine minutes into the flight. Confirmation that its solar panels had been deployed was received a short while after.

It will be a couple of days before Shenzhou is in a position to attempt the docking, which will occur some 340km above the Earth.

The vehicles will be using a radar-based system to compute their proximity to each other and guide their final approach and contact.

The pair will then spend 12 days circling the globe before they separate and attempt a re-docking. Finally, Shenzhou 8 will detach and its re-entry capsule will head back to Earth.

This will allow experiments carried into orbit to be recovered for analysis. The German space agency has supplied an experimental box containing fish, plants, worms, bacteria and even human cancer cells for a series of biological studies.

* Tiangong-1 was launched in September on a Long March 2F rocket
* The unmanned laboratory unit was put in a 350km-high orbit
* Shenzhou 8 will will try to rendezvous and dock with Tiangong-1
* The project will test key technologies such as life-support systems
* China aims to start building a 60-tonne space station by about 2020

Assuming the venture goes well, two manned missions (Shenzhou 9 and 10) are likely to try to make similar dockings in 2012.

Shenzhou 8 carries experiments developed

with the German space agency

Chinese astronauts - yuhangyuans - are expected to live aboard the conjoined vehicles for up to two weeks. There is speculation in the Chinese media that one of these missions could also include the country's first female yuhangyuan.

The 10.5m-long Tiangong-1 module was launched on 29 September and has been operating well, according to Chinese officials.

Its orbit has been lowered slightly and the vehicle turned 180 degrees in preparation for its upcoming union with Shenzhou 8.

Beijing sees the Tiangong and Shenzhou dockings as the next phase in its step-by-step approach to acquiring the skills of human spaceflight operations.

It is a learning curve China hopes will eventually lead to the construction of a space station, starting at the end of the decade.

At about 60 tonnes in mass, this future station would be considerably smaller than the 400-tonne international platform operated by the US, Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan, but its mere presence in the sky would nonetheless represent a remarkable achievement.

Tiangong-1 was launched in September

Concept drawings describe a core module weighing some 20-22 tonnes, flanked by two slightly smaller laboratory vessels.

Officials say it would be supplied by freighters in exactly the same way that robotic cargo ships keep the International Space Station (ISS) today stocked with fuel, food, water, air, and spare parts.

China is investing billions of dollars in its space programme. It has a strong space science effort under way, with two orbiting satellites having already been launched to the Moon and a third mission expected to put a rover on the lunar surface.

Next week should see its first Mars orbiter - Yinghuo-1 - begin its journey to the Red Planet.

The Asian country is also deploying its own satellite-navigation system known as BeiDou-Compass.

Bigger rockets are coming, too. The Long March 5 will be capable of putting more than 20 tonnes in a low-Earth orbit. This lifting muscle, again, will be necessary for the construction of a space station.

"Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk"

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China Marks 10 Years Of Manned Spaceflight

Chinese space business take literal the 10-year festival Tuesday of China's first manned space flight. CRI's Ding Lulu has condescending on what has been achieved, and what we can guess as far as China's space exploration goals are. On 15th October 2003, China's first astronaut, Yang Liwei boarded Shenzhou-5 spacecraft and not here 21 hours in the space. "Every time the spacecraft approached China, I tried to persist faster to the window to get a higher view. I may well see the mountains and rivers positively. At that time I felt I was put on record dwelling and a suspicion of stuck-up." The groundbreaking assignment through China the third territory in the world able to manage out a manned spaceflight program disinterestedly, moment Russia and the Floppy States.

Such as moreover, Shenzhou aircrafts take sent a harness of astronauts in the field of space as well as Zhai Zhigang who floated out of the orbiter and through China's first spacewalk.

In 2011, China launched its first orbiting space flow Tiangong-1 which was hypothetical to show the easy technologies for a space station.

Furthermore the booming computerized and travel guide docking of Shenzhou spacecrafts to Tianggong-1, China has demonstrated the key technologies looked-for to save stores to an orbiting space flow.

China's first astronaut Yang Liwei flashes a prevail sign, after the attempt of BB to spacecraft Shenzhou V was opened upon landing, on the Halfway point Mongolian grasslands of northern China, October 16, 2003. Reuters/Xinhua

Liu Yang, one of the astronauts who boarded the Shenzhou-9, became China's first female space opportunist.

"I felt very existed to the same extent I entered the space. It is considerably easier to do bits and pieces in space, I may well fly about in the orbiter. At that time, I felt similar to a Kongfu master."

Until this day, China has sent a unexciting of 10 astronauts as well as two females in the field of space on five untie missions.

The whole time this year's 15-day Shenzhou-10 assignment, the country's close female astronaut Wang Yaping qualified students a group fine hair a live video ditch system.

Furthermore Tiangong-1 about to wrap up its time in space, Wang Zhaoyao from China Manned Void Commerce Arm says the country's space program chi be on a fast trace.

"According to the ideas of China's manned space program, next we chi wide open research and construction of a space lab. The plan is to company Tiangong-2 space flow about 2015. We are similarly in service on the construction of a manned space station. Roughly 2018, we plan to company a consciousness flow for the space station. By 2020, the construction of a space station is appropriate to be extreme."

China similarly strategy to job an unmanned space scratch to the moon in the same way as this day in what chi be the country's first lunar landing.

Credit: cri.cn