The first Chinese spacewalk was successfully completed

After a small mishap at the end of the spacewalk, during which the technauts had to reopen the hatch to space, and close it again, as of the closing time of this news, the two begin to restore the air pressure in the orbital chamber

The details were taken from listening to the report from the live broadcast on the CCTV 9 network. The times are according to Israel time, today, Saturday, 27/9/2008

Friday - the two astronauts Liu Boming and Zhai Zhigang say goodbye to their friend who remained in the return chamber, and move to the orbital chamber. Little by little they change the composition of the air in it so that it contains pure oxygen. This is so that when they move to space conditions, there will be no nitrogen bubbles in their blood that could cause the arteries that reach the brain to be blocked.

Saturday morning

10:30 Start of emptying the air from the orbital chamber and comparing the conditions in it to the conditions of the space outside.

11:15 The astronauts are now breathing clean oxygen through their suits. Total silence in the control room in Beijing. During the time remaining until the start of the spacewalk, the control room personnel monitor the blood pressure and heart rate of the two astronauts who are in space conditions in the orbital chamber. In fact, although only Jai will go on the spacewalk, Booming will also stay in space conditions inside the cabin.

11:35 Zhai slowly performs the process of opening the exit hatch to space. He has a gap of two centimeters between the width of his body including the space suit and the diameter of the opening. In an airless environment it is very difficult to make movements because every movement causes a reaction in the opposite direction and this is the reason for the slowness of the process.

11:40 the gate opens. The spacewalk is about to begin at an altitude of 334 km above the Earth. Mankind's 298th spacewalk.

11:43 Jai's head and hands come out. He waves his hands and says - I'm out of the gate and feeling good. To all my brothers in the country and the world I am proud of this. My country has loved me and I thank her for that. He then anchored a cable to the railing only then did he float out.

11:45 The live video broadcast with the spacecraft was lost. Only voice radio contact remains. Waiting for the transmission to be received by a ground station.
The reason for the short duration of the space walk is 20 minutes is so that it will last in the sun, and in a television connection

11:50 The broadcast returned, and in it you see Zhai waving the Chinese flag while his friend Liu Boming also took his head and hands out of the spaceship, and technically he also performed a spacewalk.

11:52 Zhai pulls out the lubricant that has been exposed to space conditions for 40 hours and hands it to Liu. The experiment was designed to examine what would happen to this material due to exposure to space. The broadcaster adds that the Chinese space suit was well designed and also underwent experiments that proved its ability in space. This is a relatively light suit and less bulky than usual, so that it will allow the astronaut better mobility.

11:57 Zhai puts his feet back into the opening, disconnects the red cable he was anchored to, and begins to go inside. The preparation process is not simple. He may need his friend's guidance when entering because he enters feet first and cannot see where he is entering.

12:00 The astronaut goes in, and closes the hatch, with the Earth visible in the background. The spacewalk is officially over. Now the challenge is to check that the hatch is indeed completely locked, otherwise it is still dangerous because the air may leak when it is returned to the chamber.

12:10 The technauts had to reopen the hatch to close it, apparently the sensors reported that it did not close hermetically. We will return and report later.

12:15 The hatch closed again and the two began to fill their cell back with air.

The Chinese cannot broadcast continuously from the spacecraft due to the fact that they only have one relay satellite, and three satellites at three complementary points are needed to enable continuous transmission at any point where the spacecraft is above the Earth. Therefore they use this one satellite, ground tracking stations scattered throughout China from northwest to southeast as well as ships scattered at various points in the Pacific Ocean. The spacewalk will be scheduled so that the coverage in the specific orbit in which it takes place will be maximum.