Eight hours after the launch, the Chinese report and broadcast live the successful flight * Today (Friday) the first Chinese spacewalk is expected to take place, with the help of experts from Russia
China successfully launched its third manned spacecraft yesterday, carrying three astronauts. During the mission, the Chinese will make their first attempt at a spacewalk. The Long March 2F rocket carrying the Shenzhou 7 spacecraft lifted off from the Zhikuan Launch Center in northwestern Gansu Province at 21:10 local time. On board are the pilots Zhai Zhigang, Liu Boming and Jing Haifeng will continue to circle the Earth for three days. The astronauts, known by the Chinese as taikonauts, told the control room that they felt physically strong in the first minutes of the flight.
Two of the teikonauts will perform a spacewalk, wearing a Chinese model spacesuit known as Feitian, which literally means flying in the sky, which is also the name of a well-known Buddhist goddess. They will put into the spacecraft samples loaded on the outer part of the spacecraft said Zhu Jianping, the chief planner of the Chinese manned space project. "I would like to fly in space like Feitian in Buddhist mythology, so we gave this name to the home-made space suit," Zhou said. The third technaut will stay inside the compressed spaceship and wear a Russian Orlan suit.
Other missions by the Shenzhou 7 crew will include the release of a small monitoring satellite and the test of a relay to the Titian-I satellite. If successful, the mission would be significant for China's future plans to build a space laboratory and even a space station, said Zheng Xinqi, deputy commander of China's manned space program. "China is focused on transforming the civilian uses of space," Zheng said, adding that the country would seek to carry out several international collaborations in space exploration.
The technauts, all 42 years old, are scheduled to land in the Chinese Inner Mongolia region in a reentry pod after the mission is completed.
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As if if there were any malfunctions, the Chinese would publish it...
Successfully. Nice to hear that the monopoly on space is breaking up.