China astronaut to walk in space
September 27, 2008
Three Chinese astronauts orbiting the Earth are about to take part in their country’s first space walk.
One astronaut will leave the vessel for 20 minutes to conduct experiments while a second will don a spacesuit but remain in the spacecraft as back-up.
The operation will be broadcast live on television across China.
Conducting operations outside a spacecraft is essential if China is to fulfil its goal of building an orbiting station in the next few years.
The 42-year-old fighter pilot Zhai Zhigang is due to carry out the manoeuvre at 1630 Beijing Time (0830 GMT) on Saturday.
The Shenzhou VII capsule soared into orbit on a Long March II-F rocket from Jiuquan spaceport in north-west China.
The rocket put the Shenzhou capsule in a near-circular orbit more than 300km above the Earth.
Mr Zhai is joined on the mission by two other “yuhangyuan” (astronauts) – Liu Boming and Jing Haipeng.
Zhang Jianqi, one of the chief engineers for China’s space programme, said keeping three men in the spacecraft, and then sending one outside, would be a “big test”.
“This is a big technological leap,” he told state-run news agency Xinhua.
“The risks are quite high. Sending up three astronauts is a jump both in quantity and quality.”
When Mr Zhai carries out his excursion, he is expected to wear a Chinese-made spacesuit thought to have cost between £5m and £20m ($10m-$40m).
The yuhanguan will be tethered to the capsule with an umbilical cable.
His back-up, Mr Liu, will monitor the activity, presumably to reel the spacewalker back inside if there is an emergency.
Mr Zhai will retrieve an externally mounted experiment and oversee the release of a satellite.
The ship will then release a 40kg (88lb) satellite which will circle the orbiter and beam back images to mission control.
At the end of the mission, the Shenzhou re-entry capsule will target a landing in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
China became only the third nation after the United States and Russia to independently put a man in space when Yang Liwei, another fighter pilot, went into orbit on the Shenzhou V mission in October 2003.
Two years later, Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng completed a five-day flight on Shenzhou VI.
According to the Associated Press, Xinhua posted an article on its website prior to the lift-off that was written as if Shenzhou VII had already been launched into space.
HAVE A LOOK AT THIS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7636114.stm
The article reportedly carried a date of 27 September and came complete with a dialogue between the astronauts.
Chinese media report that this latest mission is the “most critical step” in the country’s “three-step” space programme.
These stages are: sending a human into orbit, docking spacecraft together to form a small laboratory and, ultimately, building a large space station.
The Shenzhou VIII and IX missions are expected to help set up a space laboratory complex in 2010.
China launched an unmanned Moon probe last year about one month after rival Japan blasted its own lunar orbiter into space.
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