Three Chinese astronauts, Liu Yang, Jing Haipeng and Liu Wang will launch at 1237 GMT on Saturday in a Shenzhou 9 spacecraft to dock with the orbiting Tiangong 1 space “station” (module) now orbiting 322 kilometers above the Earth.
(Updated with new image below).
Liu Yang, China’s first female astronaut, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in Gansu province on Friday. Photo AP
China Daily: The impending launch of the manned Shenzhou IX spacecraft will be the first time that China’s astronauts will stay in space for more than 10 days, said Cui Jijun, chief commander of the country’s first space docking mission’s launch site system, on Wednesday. The previous record is five days, set by the Shenzhou VI spacecraft in 2005.
The mission will also complete the country’s first manned space docking to master thenecessary technology for assembling a space station, see China’s first female astronaut in space and have astronauts entering a space lab module for the first time, he added.
It is also the first time for the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, located in a desert, to conduct a mission in the summer. The past nine launches of China’s manned space program were held in the spring, autumn and winter, but not summer. The three manned spacecraft all blasted off in autumn.
Xinhua: China succeeded in the automatic docking between Shenzhou-8 spacecraft and Tiangong-1 lab module last year. A manual docking between Shenzhou-9 and Tiangong-1 will be attempted this time. ……. a female astronaut will be included in a space mission for the first time in China’s space program, the selection, training, medical monitoring and security, and flight crew equipment for female astronauts will also be tested.
Tiangong-1 Heavenly-Palace Chinese-space-station
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