Chinese complete first docking mission

William Atkins
Thursday, 17 November 2011 23:12

Science - Space

The Chinese Shenzhou 8 spacecraft landed back on Earth on Thursday night (China time) after being in space for two weeks. During its time orbiting Earth, the spacecraft remotely rendezvoused and docked with another orbiting Chinese spacecraft

The Shenzhou 8 spacecraft, a part of China's Shenzhou program, parachuted back to land within the western Taklamakan desert of China.

It was earlier launched (at 21:58 GMT, October 31 (which was November 1, 2011 in China) by a Chinese Long March 2F (CZ-2F) rocket from its launch pad (921/SLS-1) at the Southern Launch Site of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

While in space it docked twice with the Tiangong 1 space laboratory module (which was launched into space on September 29, 2011), once on November 3 and a second time on November 14, 2011.

The unmanned, robotic docking was the first time that China has attempted the complex maneuver in space.

The Chinese are aggressively pursuing its unmanned and manned space program with plans, for instance, to have a small manned space station in orbit around 2020.

They sent their first citizen into space in 2003, with the use of its own rockets and spacecraft. Only three countries have the ability to do this: China, Russia, and the United States.

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