First "kiss" space managed for China

Shenzhou-8, China

China has, on the night of Wednesday 2 to Thursday, November 3, a further step to become a major space power by passing the docking of two unmanned vessels, crucial step towards building a space station planned by 2020. At 17 h 36 GMT Wednesday, the Shenzhou-8 has joined to the module Tiangong-1 at a speed of about 28 000 km / h to 343 km above the Earth, said Thursday the spokesman Chinese manned space flight program, "Wu Ping." Shenzhou-8, whose name means "divine vessel" had taken off Tuesday from the base of Jiuquan, which was also a party on September 29 module test Tiangong-1 ("heavenly palace").

Chinese leaders including Premier Wen Jiabao attended at night to the retransmission of the operation, described as a "kiss" space in the media from the control center in Beijing. President Hu Jintao, who is in France to attend the G20 summit in Cannes, has sent a congratulatory message. ORBITAL STATION CHINA Shenzhou-8 and Tiangong-1 will remain docked for about twelve days before separating, to unite again for two days. Seconds after their separation, "Shenzhou-8 must return to Earth on November 17 in the afternoon," said Wu Ping during a press conference.

The first tie is part of the program for providing, by a decade, China a space station in which a crew can live independently for several months, as the old Russian space station Mir and the ISS (ISS). If the Shenzhou-8 is successful, China will launch next year two other ships to join Tiangong-1, Shenzhou-9 and successively Shenzhou-10, which at least will be inhabited.

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China says to launch unmanned space-docking craft

Launch unmanned space-docking craft

(Reuters) - China said on Wednesday it will launch within weeks its first spacecraft capable of docking with a module it put into orbit last month, in what will mark a crucial test of its growing space program.

The unmanned Shenzhou-8 spacecraft, carried by the Long March-2F rocket, will blast off in early November, state media reported, and will later try to dock with the Tiantong-1, or "Heavenly Palace-1" space laboratory module China launched in September.

Officials with China's space program have said the docking tests will provide experience for the building of a permanent manned space station around 2020.

It is also the latest in a long string of Chinese space launches that have burnished national pride, as budget restraints and shifting priorities have held back U.S. manned space launches.

The official Xinhua news agency did not give a specific date for the launch, but said the craft was being transported to the remote Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert.

Beijing is still far from catching up with space superpowers. Russia, the United States and other countries jointly operate the International Space Station, a group to which China does not belong.

The United States will not test a new rocket to take people into space until 2017. Russia has said manned missions are no longer a priority for its space program, which has struggled with delays and glitches.

China launched its second moon orbiter last year after it became only the third country to send its astronauts walking in space outside their orbiting craft in 2008.

It plans an unmanned moon landing and deployment of a moon rover in 2012, and the retrieval of lunar soil and stone samples around 2017. Scientists have talked about the possibility of sending a man to the moon after 2020.

China is also jostling with neighbors Japan and India for a bigger presence in space, but its plans have faced international wariness. Beijing says its aims are peaceful, and that the involvement of its military is natural given the magnitude of the undertaking.