Chinese Astronauts Land After Record-Breaking Spaceflight

[Buster's Uncle]

Three Chinese Astronauts Land After Record-Breaking Spaceflight
By Mike Wall | SPACE.com – 22 hrs ago..

In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, the re-entry capsule of China's Shenzhou 10 spacecraft lands in Siziwang Banner, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Wednesday, June 26, 2013. The space capsule with three astronauts has safely landed on grasslands in northern China after a 15-day trip to the country's prototype space station. (AP Photo/Xinhua,Ren Junchuan)


The three astronauts aboard China's Shenzhou 10 spacecraft landed in Inner Mongolia on June 25, 2013.

 
A Chinese space capsule carrying three astronauts returned safely to Earth Tuesday (June 25), wrapping up the longest manned space mission in the nation's history.

The Shenzhou 10 spacecraft touched down at 8:08 p.m. EDT Tuesday (0008 GMT), capping a 15-day mission to China's orbiting Tiangong 1 lab module. The spacecraft landed in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where the local time was 8:08 a.m. on Wednesday.

During their time aboard Tiangong 1, Nie Haisheng, Wang Yaping (the second Chinese woman to fly in space) and Zhang Xiaoguang performed a variety of experiments, beamed a microgravity science lesson down to 330 schoolkids and chatted with President Xi Jinping.

Xi lauded the three taikonauts (as Chinese astronauts are called) during the phone call on Monday (June 24) and stressed that their mission is part of a broader plan to advance China's presence and capabilities in the final frontier.

"The space dream is part of the dream to make China stronger. With the development of space programs, the Chinese people will take bigger strides to explore further into space," Xi said, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Shenzhou 10 launched June 11 and docked automatically with Tiangong 1 two days later. The spaceships separated briefly on Saturday (June 22) before joining up again, this time in a manual docking with Nie piloting the Shenzhou 10. The vessels detached for good on Monday evening (June 24), with Shenzhou 10 then flying around the lab module in a rendezvous test.

Such spaceflight maneuvers are viewed as key steps toward the construction and long-term occupancy of an orbiting space station, which China hopes to have up and running by 2020.

The Shenzhou 10 mission was China's fifth human spaceflight. The nation first launched a taikonaut in October 2003, sending Yang Liwei into orbit for 21 hours. A two-person crew spent five days in space two years later, and three taikonauts blasted off on a three-day trip in September 2008.

The next manned mission was Shenzhou 9, which sent three taikonauts — including Liu Yang, China's first woman in space — on the first flight to Tiangong 1 in June 2012. The 13-day mission featured automatic and manual dockings with the lab module, as Shenzhou 10 did.

Tiangong 1 launched to Earth orbit in September 2011 and was first visited by the unmanned Shenzhou 8 spacecraft two months later. China plans to launch a larger module, called Tiangong 2, later this year. ("Tiangong" means "Heavenly Palace" in Chinese, while "Shenzhou" is typically translated as "Divine Vessel.")

http://news.yahoo.com/three-chinese-astronauts-land-record-breaking-spaceflight-002118482.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Chinese astronauts land safely after "perfect" space mission
Reuters – 15 hrs ago..

Ground crew talks to astronaut Nie Haisheng before helping him out of the re-entry capsule of China's Shenzhou-10 spacecraft after it landed at its main landing site in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in this still image taken from a video, June 26, 2013. REUTERS/CCTV via REUTERS TV


Astronauts (L-R) Zhang Xiaoguang, Nie Haisheng and Wang Yaping wave after returning to earth in the re-entry capsule of China's Shenzhou-10 spacecraft at its main landing site in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, June 26, 2013. Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on Wednesday, touching down in north China's Inner Mongolia after a successful 15-day mission in which they docked with a manned space laboratory. REUTERS/China Daily

 
BEIJING (Reuters) - Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on Wednesday, touching down in north China's Inner Mongolia after a successful 15-day mission in which they docked with an experimental manned space laboratory.

The Shenzhou 10 spacecraft, China's fifth manned space mission since 2003, completed the final trial docking with the Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) 1, critical in Beijing's quest to build a working space station by 2020.

China Central Television showed the re-entry of the capsule, dangling from an orange parachute, and its landing on flat grasslands shortly after 8 a.m. China time.

China successfully carried out its first manned docking exercise with Tiangong 1 last June, a milestone in an effort to acquire the technological and logistical skills to run a full space station that can house people for long periods.

The Shenzhou 10 was commanded by Nie Haisheng, with Zhang Xiaoguang and female astronaut Wang Yaping also on board.

The astronauts began emerging about 90 minutes after landing, helped out of the nose of the capsule by workers in white jumpsuits and into waiting chairs, smiling and waving to the TV camera.

"It's good to be home," Nie told CCTV. "Space is our dream. The motherland is always our home."

Wang gave a 50-minute televised physics lecture last week on the effects of weightlessness, widely viewed by middle school students around the country.

"This mission made me realize two dreams: my dream of flying to outer space, and my dream of being a teacher," she told CCTV. "If you have a dream, you can succeed."

The Global Times, a tabloid published by the same company that puts out the official Communist Party newspaper the People's Daily, echoed some criticism among the public about the expense of China's space programme.

"Currently, China's passion to develop space technology mainly lingers at the government level. Some even blame the government for political vanity and question whether the money couldn't be spent improving people's livelihoods," the paper said in an editorial, published before the landing.

The mission went "perfectly", Wang Zhaoyao, director of China's manned space programme, said at a news conference in Beijing.

China is still far from catching up with the established space superpowers, the United States and Russia, which decades ago learned the docking techniques carried out by the Shenzhou 10.

China must still master launching cargo and fuel via space freighters and recycling air and water for extended manned missions, state media have said. Plans call for a working space lab, the Tiangong 2, to be put into orbit in two years.

Beijing insists its space programme is for peaceful purposes, but the U.S. Defense Department has highlighted China's increasing space capabilities and said Beijing is pursuing a variety of activities aimed at preventing its adversaries from using space-based assets during a crisis.

http://news.yahoo.com/chinas-latest-manned-spacecraft-lands-safely-mission-xinhua-002211086.html