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China launches space walk mission

By David Barboza | New York Times

The Shenzhou VII spacecraft launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China’s Gansu province on 25 September 2008. Xinhua/Li Gang/China

The three-day mission is part of Project 921, China’s ambitious manned space program, and was expected to include the country’s first attempt at a space walk, which would make China only the third country to accomplish the feat, after Russia and the United States.

The Chinese government has spent billions of dollars in recent years building up a space program that it hopes will establish a space station by 2020 and eventually put a man on the moon.

The launching of Shenzhou VII from western China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu Province, was shown live on state television, following a liftoff ceremony attended by President Hu Jintao.

The mission, which is being covered extensively in the Chinese media, is another milestone for a country that got a late start in space exploration but is now aggressively launching commercial satellites, putting men in space and even shooting down aging satellites.

Russia and the United States conducted their first space walks in 1965, and in 1969 America became the first country to put a man on the moon.

China is only the third nation to launch a man into space. India and Japan are now aggressively developing their own space programs, creating some competition in Asia for space flight.

China says its space program is speeding along, often with Chinese technology, helping establish the country as a technological power and bringing another dose of pride to the nation after the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer.

Awkwardly, though, on Wednesday, the F.B.I. arrested a Chinese-born physicist in Newport News, Va., on charges of illegally exporting space launch technical data and services to China beginning in January 2003. Shu Quan-Sheng, 68, was born in China but was a naturalized American citizen with a doctorate in physics. Mr. Shu, who was also accused of offering bribes to Chinese government officials in exchange for a business contract, was said to be involved in China’s “systematic effort to upgrade their space exploration and satellite technology capabilities by providing technical expertise and foreign technology acquisition,” according to an F.B.I. news release.

On Thursday, China — which sent its first man into space in 2003 — sent a trio of experienced fighter pilots into space, all of them 42-year-old men, one of whom is expected to walk in space for 30 minutes on Saturday, according to the state media.

The three taikonauts — the Chinese term for astronauts — plan to take samples from space and launch a small satellite monitoring station. They are even carrying traditional Chinese medicine on board, in case of sickness and their diet includes shredded pork sautéed with garlic and grilled beef with spicy sauce.

One of the taikonauts is wearing what the state-run news media has dubbed “the most complicated, advanced, and expensive suit in the world,” a $4.4 million space suit designed and produced in China. The spacecraft was lifted off by what the Chinese space agency calls the Long March II-F carrier rocket, taking the spacecraft into low orbit, about 210 miles above earth.

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