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http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/51398/1/.html BEIJING : Safety concerns, the possibility of failure and a determined culture of secrecy have contributed to the lack of transparency from China on exactly when it will blast a man into space.
The Shenzhou V is expected to lift off next week with October 15 firming up as the most likely date, according to reports, although politicians and space officials have remained stubbornly tight-lipped.
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If successful it will make China the third country to put a man in space following the former Soviet Union and the United States who first reached for the stars in the early 1960s.
"Chinese space authorities have appeared to acknowledge that there is a one week launch window that begins from October 10," said Dr. Morris Jones, an Australian spaceflight analyst at University of Wollongong.
China's refusal to be more open on the issue, despite intense interest, mainly stems from the complete military involvement in the Shenzhou program and the "cult of secrecy" that surrounds China's military and hi-tech industries, Jones said.
"They could be partially concerned about a failure of the mission, but more than that they are just obsessed with secrecy," he said.
Chinese space officials have indicated that the possibility of failure was behind some of the secrecy surrounding the launch as space administrators sought to minimize pre-flight pressure on launch personnel.
"There is a lot of anxiety in this project. There are a lot of risks. We are now undertaking all the preparatory work. What we want to ensure is that the astronaut we send up comes back safely," a leading space official recently told AFP.
"Safety is number one. We have to ensure the quality of the project."
If Shenzhou V proves to be successful, the official said the secrecy aspect would likely be lifted and Western journalists would be able to attend launches "in the very near future."
Jones, who has monitored the Shenzhou program since its maiden unmanned flight in 1999, said that the weather would play a crucial role in the safety of the mission and would be a factor in the launch date.
"I'm sure they are paying close attention to the weather, they don't want to be landing in bad weather," he told AFP.
"We believe that during the Shenzhou II mission, the space capsule returned to earth in a blizzard, which resulted in damage to the capsule, so they will want good weather for both the launch and the re-entry."
The Shenzhou V is expected to be a short one-day mission with a single astronaut manning a space capsule designed for three.
An orbital vehicle equipped with a surveillance camera and electronic intelligence gathering equipment could remain in orbit for up to six months to gather military intelligence, Jones said.
The mission is expected to be launched from a pad in Inner Mongolia and coordinated by the Jiuquan Launch Center in western Gansu province, with the re-entry vehicle set to return to Inner Mongolia.
China has so far launched four unmanned spaceflights, the last of which, Shenzhou IV, successfully returned to earth on January 5 after a 162-hour mission.
The Shenzhou program is the preliminary step towards building and manning a Chinese space station, Chinese space officials have said.
With separate command and control capabilities on both the re-entry and orbital vehicles, the Shenzhou is well equipped to engage in docking manoeuvres which would be crucial for a manned space station.
Officials have also said China hopes to launch a space probe capable of orbiting the moon by 2005 or 2006, which would ultimately lead to an eventual landing on the moon by an unmanned Chinese craft.
- AFP