China counts down to space lab launch

2011-09-26 14:22

Beijing - China was making last-minute checks and had conducted a full ground simulation for the launch of the key module for its first space laboratory, the government said on Monday.

The Tiangong-1 module is scheduled for launch on Thursday or Friday subject to weather conditions, marking a crucial stage in China's plans to assemble a permanent space station within the next decade.

Scientists conducted a simulation on the module and its Long March-2F carrier rocket at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the north-western province of Gansu on Sunday, the China Manned Space Engineering Centre reported on its website.

"This is a significant test. We've never done such a thing before," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Lu Jinrong, the chief engineer at the launch centre, as saying.

The Tiangong-1, or Palace of Heaven, is an orbital module designed to serve for two years as a rudimentary space laboratory and allow China to master the docking manoeuvres vital to the success of its plans for the space station.

Astronaut

Engineers at Jiuquan were also making "final preparations" to launch the unmanned Shenzhou-8 space capsule that is scheduled to perform the first docking manoeuvre with Tiangong-1, the space centre reported.

The carrier rocket for Shenzhou-8 arrived at the launch centre on Sunday, it said.

Astronauts are scheduled to visit Tiangong-1 twice next year on the Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10 missions to set up a mini-space station comprised of linked capsules.

In 2003, China became only the third nation to send an astronaut into orbit, after Russia and the US.

It conducted its first spacewalk in 2008 and has an ambitious space programme that includes plans for an unmanned lunar landing.

The scheduled launch of Tiangong-1 in August was delayed following the failure of another carrier rocket in the Long March family to send an experimental satellite into orbit.

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