China said it successfully launched an unmanned spacecraft yesterday to carry out a key docking mission, taking its next step towards the goal of building its first space station by 2020.
The Shenzhou VIII blasted off from the Gobi desert in China’s northwest before separating from its carrier rocket about 200 kilometres above the earth, the state Xinhua news agency said.
It is due to join with the Tiangong-1 or “Heavenly Palace” experimental module in two days, in what would be the country’s first space docking – a key step in China’s ambitious space programme.
The ability to dock successfully is crucial to the success of China’s ambitions to build a space station where astronauts can live for several months, as they do on Nasa’s International Space Station.
The technology is hard to master because the two vessels, placed in the same orbit and revolving around earth at some 28,000 kilometres per hour, must come together progressively to avoid destroying each other.
China sees its space programme as a symbol of its global stature, growing technical expertise, and the Communist Party’s success in turning around the fortunes of the once poverty-stricken nation.
It began its manned spaceflight programme in 1990 after buying Russian technology and in 2003 became the third country to send humans into space, after the former Soviet Union and the US.
The launch of Tiangong-1 on September 29, ahead of China’s National Day on October 1, was attended by Premier Wen Jiabao, while President Hu Jintao watched from a space flight control centre in Beijing.
But Beijing is playing catch-up in the space arena. The planned space docking will only emulate what the Americans and Russians achieved in the 1960s.
“As long as we are determined to rise in the world and pursue rejuvenation, we need to take risks. Otherwise China will be a nation with prosperity but subordinated to top powers,” The Gobal Times newspaper said in an editorial yesterday.
But it called for a “well-balanced” approach to space exploration, saying the money spent might be more urgently needed elsewhere in China, where the World Bank says 150 million people are still living on less than $1.25 a day.
Xinhua said the docking would take place 343 kilometres above the surface of the earth. The spacecraft will return to earth after two docking operations.
If it is a success, China will launch another two spacecraft next year to conduct more docking experiments.