CHINA LAUNCHES 2ND TEST SPACECRAFT


Message posted by Jose on January 10, 2001 at 03:41:10 EST:

By CHARLES HUTZLER Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) . China placed an unmanned spacecraft into orbit early Wednesday in the second test flight of a vessel Beijing hopes will one day carry astronauts into space.

A Long March rocket blasted off from the Gobi desert launch center at 1:00 a.m. and put the Shenzhou II spacecraft into orbit 10 minutes later, state media reported.

The spacecraft would return ``in a few days'' after conducting experiments in physics and astronomy and on space's effects on life forms and materials.

China has placed great prestige on and poured an undisclosed amount of resources into its secretive space program. If successful, the program will make China only the third nation after the United States and Russia capable of putting astronauts into space.

``An important step in realizing manned spaceflight,'' the People's Daily said in a headline below a picture of the Long March II-F rocket blasting off from the Jiuquan launch center. Newspapers praised the rocket and capsule as triumphs of domestic engineering and President Jiang Zemin sent a congratulatory telegram.

``I hope you will work persistently and unremittingly to achieve even greater victory,'' Jiang said in his message to the civilian and military personnel in the program published in state media.

Wednesday's flight was the second unmanned test of the Shenzhou family of space capsules in less than 14 months. In the first test, in November 1999, the Shenzhou, or ``sacred vessel,'' orbited the earth for 21 hours before landing on the grasslands of China's Inner Mongolia region.

The Xinhua News Agency said the Shenzhou capsule launched Wednesday was an improvement over its predecessor, its structure and technology ``basically identical to a manned space aircraft.'' The Long March rocket too featured upgraded troubleshooting and safety systems, Xinhua said.

While the Shenzhou's second test indicates a quickening of China's 30-year-old program, the government has been cagey about when a manned flight will occur. Program scientists and officials quoted by state media in recent months have suggested it could come within the next five years.

The Shenzhou's flight was being tracked and controlled from centers in Beijing, western Xi'an city and an undisclosed number of surveying ships at sea, the reports said. China Daily said that early information from the tracking networks indicated the rocket and spacecraft ``performed well.''

Despite the fanfare given to the Shenzhou launching, China has released little information publicly about the space program, code-named Project 921.

In the past few years, China acquired some Russian space technology and sent several would-be astronauts to Russia for training. Western experts believe those graduates are now training other candidates in China.


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