Shenzhou VII - China's First Spacewalk
 

China Gears Up for Third Manned Spaceflight
By Clara Moskowitz
Staff Writer
posted: 15 September 2008
02:32 pm ET
China is gearing up for its third manned spaceflight, set to include its first ever spacewalk, later this month.

The three-member crew is not yet named for the Shenzhou 7 mission, due to launch sometime between Sept. 25 and Sept. 30 from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu Province, China, but a spokesman for the launch center told the Shanghai Daily newspaper that preparations were on track for liftoff.

"All the major systems involved in the launching are now in final preparations," the newspaper quoted the unnamed spokesman as saying last week. "The main tests for the spacecraft, the Long March 2F rocket, suits for the space walk and a satellite accompanying the flight have been finished."

In the days leading up to the mission the crew has been busy conducting drills and making final preparations, and are all in good physical and mental condition, he said. Sea search and rescue teams have also been rehearsing plans to rescue the astronauts if any accident should occur during launch to cause the reentry capsule to fall into sea, the state-owned Xinhua news service reported.

In a bold gesture of confidence, China has announced plans to broadcast the spacewalk live. The Shenzhou spacecraft is set to carry its own small satellite, which could be automatically released from the vehicle or let go by astronauts during the spacewalk, to beam footage back to Earth, state media reported. The satellite is equipped with charge coupled device (CCD) cameras to capture the historic moment when the spacewalker steps into space.

China's first spaceflight, the 2003 launch of the Shenzhou 5 mission, made it the third country, after Russia and the United States, to launch a person into space on its own. Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei orbited the Earth 14 times during the successful 21-hour flight.

In 2005, China launched the Shenzhou 6 mission, a five-day flight and the nation's first with two astronauts aboard.

China's Shenzhou spacecraft are based on Russia's three-module Soyuz vehicles, but have been modernized by Chinese engineers. They include an orbital module that can remain in space to carry out experiments after the crew returns in the reentry module. The orbital module is outfitted with solar arrays to supply it with power, and could become the base for a space station or a docking target for future spacecraft.

This third spaceflight was originally scheduled for the end of October, but was moved earlier so that the position of the sun would enable the spacewalk to be performed in sunlight, rather than darkness, China Daily reported.

The five-day mission is aimed at continuing China's journey toward the goal of exploring space and eventually landing on the moon, Chinese space officials have said.

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go china 50 years to late

Considering that 50 years ago China was an agrarian society ravaged by WWII and Civil war, I would say it's more like 50 years too soon.

But this is Revscene, where China bashing is the norm for whitey.

I hope they don't try to parallel park

what about canada? do we have our own space shuttle?

:p .

and how did China get into this sorry state of affairs?

No need to. First off, we don't have the funding for it (well, we probably do, but we don't need to bother wasting the money into funding one); and secondly, we have companies like MDA providing various vital components to NASA for their space program.

You think Canada wouldn't be able to? We can build a shuttle and send people to space in a heart beat just like how we can obtain nukes in a heart beat. But lucky us the government here is more concerned about providing its citizens with better services instead of spending billions on a space program. We'd rather work with Nasa, the famous Canadarm is obviously Canadian..just an example.

With hundreds of millions in poverty why are they spending billions on a second rate space program I have no idea. I believe back in the 50 or 60's or whatever they had a rocket set to launch and it blew up killing thousands of chinese citizens and they hushed up the whole incident. (I'm not sure if it was related to space program)

^ well, at least it's good to see the chinese are spending money on the space program rather than developing nuclear missiles and military technology

...and what does this have to do with their space program?

why india has nuclear warheads? why korean has nuclear facilities, why
swaziland's king can have 13 wives...it's about priority, I guess. Like you said,
hundreds of millions are in poverty, that's why you don't see china sending
pathfinder to Mars or Hubble Space Telescope. Instead, they send satellites
up there just to meet the demand of mass communication (as I read from the
news) in China and a lot of countries in Asia and Africa.

we shouldn't laugh or criticize they send cheesy rockets up into the space,
just because NASA or CSA has better technology...see this as a break
through, we should give them an applause...

We don't need to really, our neighbors down south are doing all the footwork and major expenditures.

But we contributed greatly with the creation of the Canadarm

I see this is going to turn into another China-can-do-no-wrong (China Nationalists) vs. China can-do-no-right (whiteys)

why can't you people get a fucking clue and stop being such caricatures of yourselves?

Don't get me wrong; it's awesome to see yet another country being able to regularly fly into space. However, military technology is a direct offspring of space flight. Much of USA's military technology came directly from NASA and various other space programs.

the sad thing is that the China-can-do-no-right has probably more Chinese decendents than whiteys..
aka. CBC, bananas.. those ppl are the saddest group of population.. they belong no where.

They also might recognize that 20 or years later countries might be fighting over the moon. Did read a while ago they wanted to send someone to the moon for whatever ego boosting reason.

^ funny you mention the term neighbours ... I don't see any of the americans down there are
considering us or knowing us helping with their space program, our status is just slightly
better than their southern "neighbour", Mexico. Ask them to name some Canadian
Astronauts, I am sure no one can tell.

^
name some american astronauts that isn't ARMSTRONG without looking it up..Bruce willis doesn't count either

who said china's space program is second rated? answer me that first

err...space flight is a direct derivation of MILLITARY technology. Hello? V2 rockets? Wernher Von Braun? Operation Paperclip?

How can you expect a nation with aspirations for a world-projecting millitary to ignore space flight?

By you detractors' logic, spaceflight and ergo the exploration of space should be shelved until every poor person in the world is fed, clothed, and given laptop to bitch about their tax dollars being mispent!

Heh, sorry. What I was trying to say is that ultimately they tend to go hand-in-hand.

similar to canada, china buys most of their stuff from its neighbour. MutherRushshaaaa

and yes, china develops some new deadly missiles...but who do they aim? TAIWAN only :lol

how much do you really know about rocket science? SFUdropout.
it's no brainer...it's like comparing a Mercedes and a Kia

Oooooohhhhh Canadarm! LOL. Grabbing on to whatever we can for pride now huh? Nasa/USA can easily make their own.

Canada can easily send a vehicle to space? I highly doubt it. Being able to sustain a space program is a sign of economic power and strength and Canada isn't exactly a power house in that category