Another space milestone for China
19 Jun 2012 3:17 AM GMT
Three Chinese astronauts including the country's first spacewoman on Monday successfully coupled their spaceship with an orbiting module and later entered it creating history amid cheers from ground staff, in a live telecast show.
The move is yet another milestone in the Chinese space programme. After the automatic docking, coordinated mostly from ground, the three astronauts on board Shenzhou-9 (Divine Grace) entered the orbiting space lab Tiangong-1 or 'Heavenly Palace', an experimental space lab put into orbit last year.
The experiment was part of China's efforts to establish a space lab on the lines of Russia's International Space Station, Mir, currently in orbit since 2001.
For the three Chinese astronauts, the procedure began on Monday as Shenzhou-9, in which they traveled to space two days ago, first moved to a location 52 km from Tiangong-1 at noon on Monday, the Beijing Aerospace Control Center said.
The spacecraft then slowly drifted towards Tiangong-1, which is orbiting on its own since last year and completed the docking in less than eight minutes, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
During the process of automated docking, the astronauts namely Jing Haipeng, Liu Wang and China's first woman astronaut Liu Yang were calm and in good condition, reporting the status of Shenzhou-9 to the ground frequently, the Center said. They are the first tenants in the 15-cubic-meter cabin of Tiangong-1, an official said. .
The 8.5-tonne space lab module has been traveling around Earth for 263 days since it was launched in September 2011. 'The real test will be the manual docking attempt six days later,' Zhou Jianping, chief engineer of China's manned space program said.
'A manual docking, if successful, will demonstrate the country's grasp of essential space rendezvous.'
The move is yet another milestone in the Chinese space programme. After the automatic docking, coordinated mostly from ground, the three astronauts on board Shenzhou-9 (Divine Grace) entered the orbiting space lab Tiangong-1 or 'Heavenly Palace', an experimental space lab put into orbit last year.
The experiment was part of China's efforts to establish a space lab on the lines of Russia's International Space Station, Mir, currently in orbit since 2001.
For the three Chinese astronauts, the procedure began on Monday as Shenzhou-9, in which they traveled to space two days ago, first moved to a location 52 km from Tiangong-1 at noon on Monday, the Beijing Aerospace Control Center said.
The spacecraft then slowly drifted towards Tiangong-1, which is orbiting on its own since last year and completed the docking in less than eight minutes, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
During the process of automated docking, the astronauts namely Jing Haipeng, Liu Wang and China's first woman astronaut Liu Yang were calm and in good condition, reporting the status of Shenzhou-9 to the ground frequently, the Center said. They are the first tenants in the 15-cubic-meter cabin of Tiangong-1, an official said. .
The 8.5-tonne space lab module has been traveling around Earth for 263 days since it was launched in September 2011. 'The real test will be the manual docking attempt six days later,' Zhou Jianping, chief engineer of China's manned space program said.
'A manual docking, if successful, will demonstrate the country's grasp of essential space rendezvous.'
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