China launches three astronauts into orbit
JISHOU, HUNAN — The Chinese space agency successfully sent three yuhangyuan into orbit tonight, its third successful manned mission in five years.
During the four-day mission of Shenzhou 7, one of the astronauts will exit the capsule to take China’s first walk in space. His EVA is expected to last 40 minutes, and will serve as a “dry run” for planned EVAs to build a Chinese space station in the next few years.
The launch from the Jiuquan space facility in northwest China went off without a hitch at 9:10 pm. The crew were in orbit over the Pacific Ocean within 15 minutes.
The spacewalker is expected to be Zhai Zhigang, 42, a test pilot, but one of his crewmates, Liu Boming or Jing Haipeng, also 42-year-old test pilots, could exit the capsule in his place if necessary.
It is the first time in space for all three.
China has ambitious plans for its space program, as it tries to be another world player in space exploration. By 2010 it hopes to have a small space station in low earth orbit. In 2012 it plans to send its second unmanned probe to the Moon. The first took photos of the lunar surface last year.
Another unmanned mission will visit the Moon in 2015, and return lunar rock and soil samples to Chinese scientists on Earth. If successful, China would become the first nation in four decades to bring lunar samples to Earth. US Apollo astronauts brought back more than 800 pounds of samples between 1969 and 1972. The former Soviet Union’s unmanned Luna missions returned with less than a pound between 1970 and 1972.
The feather in China’s cap is a manned lunar mission scheduled for 2017, three years ahead of the US space agency’s scheduled landing. If successful, China would become only the second nation to land astronauts on Earth’s nearest neighbor.
With a booming economy, China has within the last three decades become a major force in international trade. The government is keen to make China another superpower scientifically and politically, as well. Tonight’s launch was witnessed by Hu Jintao, the country’s president, who met with the Shenzhou crew before their launch, and who praised them and the staff at mission control afterward.
With the Olympics and Paralympics over, China needs some good news to offset reports of an alarming number of children and adults falling seriously ill from tainted milk products, including infant formula, in the last several weeks.
For details about the space mission, visit the BBC.
For news about the tainted milk products, visit here.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Isn’t 2010 a little soon? I mean, they’d have to have that small space station pretty much built or at least know exactly how it’s going to be put together and know it works…wouldn’t it? I don’t know much about space stuff haha. Enlighten me, Astronomy Dad!
September 26th, 2008 at 1:16 am
Actually, first they intent to link two space capsules together to form an orbiting lab, by 2010. An actual “space station” — the size of the ISS — would come later. I’m not sure of the timetable yet.
The space lab is certainly do-able by 2010. The rocket the Chinese use is dead reliable, and not as fussy as the Space Shuttle, so launching two capsules into orbit one after the other would be easy. Building a larger station would require many more launches and a lot of money. The reason we have an International Space Station is to spread that expense over several countries. How China expects to build one by itself is anyone’s guess. The space budget is not exactly public knowledge here.