Word: shenzhou
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...countdown has begun. this fall, china will send a Long March 2F rocket hurtling into space from a remote launch facility near the Gobi Desert. The payload: Shenzhou, or "Divine Vessel," a capsule carrying China's first astronauts. The mission: enter a low Earth orbit for up to a week, then parachute back to a landing zone on the Mongolian steppe. The goal: elevate China into the exclusive ranks of spacefaring nations...
...piloted space program is good propaganda. "Just as England went to North America and made it British, China needs to stake its claim in space," says Xu Shijie, a spacecraft designer at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics who has worked on altitude controls for the Shenzhou...
...secrecy surrounding Chinese astronauts may be due to the country's less-than-stellar space record so far. In the past the government announced test launches of Shenzhou spacecraft only after they returned, saving itself the embarrassment of having to explain failures. China's satellite-launch program suffered a string of disastrous explosions and aborted launches in the mid-1990s. Although all four unmanned Shenzhou craft have returned from orbit since the first test in 1999, not all were mission-accomplished. The Shenzhou II is widely believed to have suffered damage from a hard landing during a blizzard...
...space launches are planned by China this year, following the recent successful launch and return of Shenzhou IV. A manned mission is slated...
...Count China Out Of the Space Race Yet By HANNAH BEECH Chinese pride blasted into orbit last week with the launch of a spacecraft that takes the nation one step closer to bringing Mao memorabilia to the moon. In an ambiguous sign of technological self-confidence, the Shenzhou 3 rocket carried not snails-they were part of the payload during a mission last year-but crash-test dummies, which sent back simulated heartbeats and voices. (Ordinary Chinese could relate, being familiar with the National People's Congress.) While in orbit, the craft also captured digital images of Earth that notebook...