China's Shenzhou-11 manned spacecraft successfully docks with Tiangong-2 space lab
- by Minnie Bishop
- in Research
- — Oct 22, 2016
Germany's Diet Welt newspaper published a photo of China's launch of Shenzhou-11 with wishes printed in Germany on the photo "Wish China luck in flight".
About 10 minutes after lift-off, the spacecraft separated from the launch vehicle's second-stage and was placed into a 197 km x 361 km initial parking orbit.
President Xi Jinping then sent a congratulatory message through Defense Minister Fan Changlong telling their astronauts to explore and examine space "more deeply and more broadly".
BEIJING (AP) A pair of Chinese astronauts entered the country's orbiting space station for a month-long stay early Wednesday, as China's sixth and longest crewed mission gets underway in earnest.
The current launch will take the taikonauts two full days before they reach the orbiting Chinese laboratory.
China is now developing the Long March 5 heavy-lift rocket needed to launch the Tiangong 2's additional components and other massive payloads. The docking occurred 393 kilometers above Earth's surface and the remotely controlled procedure lasted about two hours, according to state media.
It sent its first astronaut into space in 2003, and in 2011, it launched Tiangong-1 - the first operational component of the Tiangong program, which seeks to put a permanently manned space station into service by 2022. The Tiangong-2, and its predecessor Tiangong-1, are prototypes of the same. The article pointed out that, although veteran aerospace countries have spent decades exploring space, China is using its latecomer's advantage to surpass them - China uses the latest aerospace technologies to achieve symbolic aerospace achievements in a leapfrog manner, the website explained.
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Haipeng and Dong will spend around a month in space conducting various experiments.
Shenzhou-11 is China's first manned space mission since 2013, and is indicative of the country's huge ongoing push into the space race. They are scheduled to stay for 30 days in space - the longest duration Chinese astronauts would have been.
"It is any astronaut's dream and pursuit to be able to perform many space missions", Jing, who turns 50 during his time in space, told a briefing Sunday.
The docking of the space craft with the space lab has made China the third country to carry out crewed missions after the USA and Russian Federation. Some reports say that China will be sending another manned mission in 2017.
Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong will be spending the next 30 days in space conducting experiments.
Chinese astronauts are not permitted to set foot in the International Space Station because of Obama's fear of China's drive for space exploration bearing military purposes.
