China is catching up fast in the space race. On June 11 it has successfully launched its fifth manned space mission, sending on a 15-day space trek three Chinese astronauts: Commander Nie Haisheng, Zhang Xiaoguang and China’s second female astronaut, Wang Yaping. The Chinese space ship will dock at the country’s Tiangong-1 space lab. This will be the longest mission so far for the Chinese astronauts involved in their quest to build their own manned space station. China is one of the three nations, aside from the United States and Russia that have sent their own individual manned stations in space. For the Chinese people, their space program is one of their pride and joy, a reflection of their fast technological and economic progress and their ambition to be right beside the leading nations in the world.
Planned mission
This space journey had been announced as early as November last year. The plan, which is to dock in the orbiting Chinese space lab named Tiangong-1 also includes the crew conducting of a series of science lessons from space with young Chinese students. This is a copy of NASA’s initiative to encourage young people to take an interest in science and space exploration as well as seek funding for their space endeavors.
The capsule carrying the three-member crew lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center located at the edge of the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia. Chinese President Xi Jinping was at the launch center to wish them well on their 15-day space journey.
Their spacecraft was launched aboard the Long March 2F rocket. Their destination, the Tiangong-1 is a prototype of the planned Chinese space station, a much larger one that is slated for launch in 2020.
It will take the spacecraft 40 hours to reach the operating altitude of Tiangong-1, which is stationed 210 miles or 335 kilometers from the earth’s surface.
The experimental Chinese space station was launched in 2011. The Shenzhou-9 crew, which included China’s first female astronaut, Liu Yang, successfully hooked up with the space lab for ten days in 2012. The longer mission of the Shenzhou-10 crew is meant to be a practice period for automatic and manual docking procedures prior to the launch of their actual space station. China plans to operate their space station like the International Space Station, with several interlocking modules and residents that can stay for a period of time.
A look into the future
Reportedly, China has been trying on several occasions to join the International Space Station but it’s been said that the U.S. is trying to keep them at bay. Therefore, China has been working on their space lab alone. The Tiangong-1 is a space module that is 10.5 meters in size. It was launched to provide a target for the succeeding manned space missions to help them master the technologies for docking, which is crucial in operating a fully equipped station in space.
Now there is a big question. The Chinese are planning to launch their fully equipped space station in 2020, which is the same target year when the International Space Station will be decommissioned and sent down into the earth’s ocean. What will be the next step for the United States and the other nations involved in the International Space Station?
The Chinese space program also includes sending an unmanned mission to the moon in the near future. The country has been warned by NASA that the Apollo moon landing sites must not be disturbed.
Photo Credit: Jiuquan Launch Center
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