Rocket launches Chinese space lab

BBC ^ | September 29th 2011 | Johnathan Amos

[Cardhu]

A rocket carrying China's first space laboratory, Tiangong-1, has launched from the north of the country.

The Long March vehicle lifted clear from the Jiuquan spaceport in the Gobi Desert at 21:16 local time (13:16 GMT).

The rocket's ascent took the lab out over the Pacific, and on a path to an orbit some 350km above the Earth.

The 10.5m-long, cylindrical module will be unmanned for the time being, but the country's astronauts, or yuhangyuans, are expected to visit it next year.

Tiangong means "heavenly palace" in Chinese.

The immediate plan is for the module to operate in an autonomous mode, monitored from the ground. Then, in a few weeks' time, China will launch another unmanned spacecraft, Shenzhou 8, and try to link the pair together.

This rendezvous and docking capability is a prerequisite if larger structures are ever to be assembled in orbit.

"Rendezvous and docking is a sophisticated technology," said Yang Hong, Tiangong-1's chief designer. "It's also essential to building China's own space station," he told the state broadcaster China Central Television.

China has promised to build this station at the end of the decade.

Assuming the Shenzhou 8 venture goes well, two manned missions (Shenzhou 9 and 10) should follow in 2012. The yuhangyuans - two or three at a time - are expected to live aboard the conjoined vehicles for up to two weeks.

[Cardhu]

Video at link

[Rio]

What’s the Chinese word for “Skylab?”

[mkmensinger]

The difference between the Chinese & US space programs:
in the Chinese space program, Tang is one of the astronauts. (Ron White)

[mikey_hates_everything]

“Heavenly palace”...good one. That’s where ghosts live, isn’t it? Because that’s what will be in that tin can soon after it’s manned.

[tje]

I think this is great. There needs to be competition..

[untenured]

I don't think there will be that much competition. Many Chinese people are fanatic about doing things that advance national image, things that allow them to feel they are avenging the humiliations of the last 200 years Unlike the Soviet Union they get modern capitalist competition and technology, and they have 3x the US population (although they are still poor per capita). The US, in contrast, is exhausted by its welfare-state commitments; the recent political theater indicates that even laughably small cuts in the entitlement state are still unthinkable. This spending is gradually going to crowd out much of what the government does. Any competition in space on our end is going to have to come from the private sector.

Unless China is a long-term illusion built on a bubble (which is possible), they will be as formidable an adversary as they want to be, and not just in space.

[Myrddin]

Another UARS fiasco in the future.

[Antoninus]

Unless China is a long-term illusion built on a bubble (which is possible), they will be as formidable an adversary as they want to be, and not just in space.

They've already won. We completely lack the will to be a great nation any longer. We're too concerned with how Two and a Half Men will carry on without Charlie.

[PIF]

The difference between the Chinese & US space programs:

—

China has one ...

[Bender2]

Re: What’s the Chinese word for “Skylab?”

男孩，做了那些... 红色袜子阻气!

That is, if I recall correctly... what was my last fortune cookie said--

No, that actually translates to... "Boy, did those Red Sox ever choke!"