China's space man 'feels good'

2003-10-15 07:02

Jiuquan, China - China launched an astronaut into space on Wednesday aboard the Shenzou V craft in a historic mission which catapults the country into an elite club alongside Russia and the United States.

The Long March II F rocket carrying the capsule blasted into clear skies from the remote Gobi desert in north China's Inner Mongolia at 09:00 (01:00 GMT) for a 21-hour flight that will see the craft orbit the Earth 14 times.

Shenzou V went into preset orbit 10 minutes after take-off as China became just the third country after the United States and the former Soviet Union to put a man in space, 42 years after Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's epic flight.

Russian Gagarin was the first human in space on April 12, 1961 in a flight lasting 108 minutes. Days later on May 5 American Alan Shepard spent just 15 minutes on a suborbital flight.

People's Liberation Army Lieutenant Colonel Yang Liwei, 38, was at the controls on Wednesday and reported 34 minutes into the flight that he "feels good" and that the craft was operating normally.

"I feel good, see you tomorrow," Yang, a fighter pilot with more than 1 300 hours flight time, was quoted as saying.

Glory of our great motherland

Chinese President Hu Jintao, who watched the blast-off at the Jiuquan Launch Centre, hailed the successful launch as "the glory of our great motherland" and an "historic step" for the Chinese people.

The Xinhua news agency quoted Chinese space officials as saying the maiden manned flight was a "success".

"The spacecraft and the carrier rocket separated at 09:10 and the spacecraft entered its present orbit," said an official in charge of the manned space programme.

State media said Shenzhou V is expected to land near Siziwang, 100km north of the Inner Mongolian capital Hohhot, early on Thursday.

Highly secretive

The mission caps a highly secretive 11-year manned space programme that has cost billions of dollars.

The secrecy continued up to the launch with the government pulling the plug without explanation on a live broadcast.

The Shenzhou, or "Divine Vessel," is based on the three-seat Russian Soyuz capsule, but Beijing insists everything sent into space is developed and made in China.

Several US experts have speculated that China is aiming to catch up with the United States and Russia, which already have numerous military spy satellites in orbit.

The country has now achieved something other leading satellite launchers, such as the European Union, Japan and India, have not.

- AFP