Shenzhou-10 launch successful
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The Long March-2F rocket loaded with the Shenzhou-10 manned spacecraft carrying three Chinese astronauts lifts off from the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Gansu Province, yesterday.Xinhua
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The astronauts salute in the capsule before the Shenzhou-10 spacecraft blasted off. Xinhua
CHINA’S latest manned spacecraft successfully blasted off yesterday on a 15-day mission to dock with a space lab and educate young people about science.
The Shenzhou-10 capsule carrying three astronauts lifted off as scheduled at 5:38 p.m. from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu Province. The craft carried two men, mission commander Nie Haisheng and Zhang Xiaoguang, and China’s second female astronaut, Wang Yaping.
Earlier in the afternoon, President Xi Jinping wished them well at the launch center.
“You have made Chinese people feel proud of ourselves,” Xi told the three astronauts. “You have trained and prepared yourselves carefully and thoroughly, so I am confident in your completing the mission successfully. I wish you success and look forward to your triumphant return.”
Premier Li Keqiang watched the launch at the space command center in Beijing.
It’s China’s fifth manned space mission and its longest. The spacecraft was launched aboard a Long March-2F rocket and will transport the crew to the Tiangong-1, which functions as an experimental prototype for a much larger Chinese space station to be launched in 2020. The craft will spend 12 days docked with the Tiangong.
The crew plans to deliver a series of talks to students on Earth about physics from aboard the Tiangong.
Wang will teach about motion in a microgravity environment and about the surface tension of liquid, and will help students understand the concepts of weight, mass and Newton’s Laws. She will give demonstrations while lecturing in orbit, and will interact with students and teachers on Earth. Her two fellow crew members will act as cameramen and assistants during the lecture.
The world’s first teacher in space was Christa McAuliffe, a 37-year-old middle school teacher from the United States, but the Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated after 73 seconds in flight Jan. 28, 1986. McAuliffe and her six crewmates were killed.
Barbara Morgan, McAuliffe’s backup on that mission and who later became an astronaut herself, completed the teaching lesson in space in 2007, when she was sent to the International Space Station. Via a video feed, she showed students how to exercise and drink water in space.
China is hoping to join the United States and Russia as the only countries to send independently maintained space stations into orbit. It is already one of just three nations to have launched manned spacecraft on its own.
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