BBC: China joins space club

[Dao Van <daotb@yahoo.com>]

Sunday ,21 Novenber 1999 China joins space club

Mission designed to test technology for manned space travel


China has successfully completed a test of its first experimental
spacecraft. 

The Shenzhou spacecraft, literally meaning
"divine ship", was
in space for 21 hours and orbited 14 times according to the Chinese
Xinhua news agency. 

The unmanned spacecraft was launched with a new version of the Long
March rocket from Jinquan satellite launch centre in the north-western
province of Gansu at 0630 on Saturday (2230 GMT on Friday). 

The capsule "touched down" in the northern province of Inner Mongolia,
the agency said. 

Television showed only simulation pictures of the module descending by
parachute before landing. 

The vehicle is part of China's manned space flight programme.  This
launch was designed to test the technology of the craft for future
manned space travel. 

In brief video footage showing the launch and the capsule that returned
to earth, the spacecraft appeared to resemble the Apollo series of
capsules launched by NASA in the US in the late 1960s. 

China decades behind

"The successful launching and
retrieval of the spaceship marks the country's new major breakthrough in
manned space flight technology," according to the Chinese news agency. 

Our correspondent in Beijing, Adam Brookes, reports that China already
has a successful commercial satellite launch industry and a considerable
missile capacity. 

In manned space flight, however, it still remains decades behind the
United States and Russia. 

However, the Chinese Communist Party appears to view putting an
astronaut into space as an important prestige project. 

China says that the rockets and the craft in this weekend's launch were
designed and manufactured by Chinese scientists. 

Analysts in the space business say that China looks to Russia for
extensive help in its space programme. 

The launch makes China the third country to have a manned space
programme, after the United States and Russia. 



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