China is due to embark on its most ambitious space mission Saturday with the launch of a spacecraft that will propel three astronauts — such as the nation’s first lady — to the final frontier.
The Shenzhou-9 spacecraft is expected to take off on China’s fourth manned space mission at 6:37pm (1037 GMT) from the remote Gobi desert in the nation’s northwest, in a bid to achieve the first manual space docking high above Earth.
The crew will be headed by Jing Haipeng, a veteran astronaut who has gone to space twice currently. Liu Wang, who has been in the space programme for 14 years, is in charge of manual docking manoeuvres.
Liu Yang, 33, meanwhile, who has developed a stir in the media and online for becoming China’s first lady to travel to space, will be conducting aerospace medical experiments and other space tests.
The mission will last 10 days, throughout which the crew will perform experiments and the manual space docking — a extremely technical procedure that brings two vessels with each other in high speed orbit.
Profitable completion of the space rendezvous – which will see Shenzhou-9 attach itself to the Tiangong-1 module presently orbiting Earth – will take China one step nearer to setting up its personal space station in 2020.
Sources and more information:
• Liu Yang meets the press before Shenzhou-9 blastoff
• Woman on China’s space mission
• Medical research planned for Shenzhou-9 mission
• BBC News – China set for space mission of first woman astronaut