China yesterday launched its third manned space flight, carrying three astronauts on a 68-hour mission that will include the nation’s first ever space walk, state TV reported.
The Shenzhou VII spacecraft lifted off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China in the presence of senior leaders.
Zhai Zhigang (翟志剛), an air force colonel who grew up in abject poverty in China’s bleak northeast, is expected to carry out the 30-minute space walk today or more likely tomorrow, state media said.
The Long March 2F rocket carrying the Shenzhou VII spacecraft was scheduled to blast off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China between 9:07pm and 10:27pm yesterday.
Its mission: a 68-hour journey to space and back, including the walk while in orbit 373km above Earth.
“We have the confidence, the determination and the ability to take the Chinese people’s first steps into space,” said one of the three astronauts, Jing Haipeng (景海鵬), referring to the space walk.
Getting comfortable with the art of spacewalking is a crucial next step in China’s most immediate extraterrestrial ambition: to build a permanent space lab.
By 2010 two more unmanned craft will have been sent up, as well as another manned spaceship with a crew of three to start work on the lab, the China Daily said.
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平) — widely seen as a candidate to become China’s next leader when political power changes hands in four year’s time — was due to meet the astronauts two-and-a-half hours before take-off, the China Daily said.
The astronauts, led by 41-year-old Zhai, have trained together for more than a decade, but the mission is not without its risks, notably the space walk.
“The process of [space walks] cannot be simulated completely on the ground,” spokesman of the manned space mission, Wang Zhaoyao (王兆耀) said, according to the China Daily.
One of the astronauts, whom government Web sites have identified as Zhai, will test a new Chinese-made spacesuit on the space walk.
Coming just a month after the end of the Beijing Olympics, the mission may trigger a new burst of nationalist pride in some segments of the population.
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