Beijing: Chinese astronauts today successfully completed the country's 1st ever manual space docking, a critical manoeuvre linking their spacecraft with an experimental space lab component, bringing Beijing a step closer to its ambitious plan to build a space position.
The 3 astronauts, including China's 1st woman cosmonaut Liu Yang, seated in their spacecraft Shenzhou-9 (Divine Grace) docked with the orbiting Tiangong-1 lab (Heavenly Palace) the first experimental space with textbook precession, an event broadcast live by the state-run CCTV.
With today's physical docking, China becomes 3rd country after Russia and the US to accomplish such a accomplishment in space.
The event was timed to coincide with the Dragon Boat fiesta being celebrated all over China today.
The 2 spacecraft which were separated earlier through an automatic procedure were conjoined once more in a manual process which took about 10 minutes.
The ground staff cheered as the three astronauts showed victory symbol announcing the successful docking, regarded as an necessary manoeuvre, critical during emergencies, when the automatic system fails.
To leave room for manual adjustment, engineers set up 4 berth points for the spaceship on the same orbit 5 km, 400 meters, 140 meters and 30 meters away from the orbiting lab. The spacecraft and the space lab were joined mutually by an automated docking on June 18.
Shenzhou-9 was sent into space on June 16 from a launch centre in China's northwest Gobi wasteland.
A highly complicated space manoeuvre, manual docking requires the astronauts to link together 2 orbiters traveling at 7.8 kilometers a second in space devoid of a hitch.
Today's successful manoeuvre means China has completely grasped the space rendezvous and docking technologies and had the fundamental abilities to build a space station, a report by state-run Xinhua news agency supposed.
Shenzhou-9 and Tiangong-1 successfully conducted an automatic docking and astronauts on June 18.
Compared with the automated docking, the physical docking is more challenging in terms of orbit control, supposed Xie Jianfeng, a space scientist with the Beijing Aerospace Control Centre.
China's 1st unmanned space docking was completed successful last year with the docking of the Shenzhou-8 spacecraft and the Tiangong-1.
The 3 astronauts, including China's 1st woman cosmonaut Liu Yang, seated in their spacecraft Shenzhou-9 (Divine Grace) docked with the orbiting Tiangong-1 lab (Heavenly Palace) the first experimental space with textbook precession, an event broadcast live by the state-run CCTV.
With today's physical docking, China becomes 3rd country after Russia and the US to accomplish such a accomplishment in space.
The event was timed to coincide with the Dragon Boat fiesta being celebrated all over China today.
The 2 spacecraft which were separated earlier through an automatic procedure were conjoined once more in a manual process which took about 10 minutes.
The ground staff cheered as the three astronauts showed victory symbol announcing the successful docking, regarded as an necessary manoeuvre, critical during emergencies, when the automatic system fails.
To leave room for manual adjustment, engineers set up 4 berth points for the spaceship on the same orbit 5 km, 400 meters, 140 meters and 30 meters away from the orbiting lab. The spacecraft and the space lab were joined mutually by an automated docking on June 18.
Shenzhou-9 was sent into space on June 16 from a launch centre in China's northwest Gobi wasteland.
A highly complicated space manoeuvre, manual docking requires the astronauts to link together 2 orbiters traveling at 7.8 kilometers a second in space devoid of a hitch.
Today's successful manoeuvre means China has completely grasped the space rendezvous and docking technologies and had the fundamental abilities to build a space station, a report by state-run Xinhua news agency supposed.
Shenzhou-9 and Tiangong-1 successfully conducted an automatic docking and astronauts on June 18.
Compared with the automated docking, the physical docking is more challenging in terms of orbit control, supposed Xie Jianfeng, a space scientist with the Beijing Aerospace Control Centre.
China's 1st unmanned space docking was completed successful last year with the docking of the Shenzhou-8 spacecraft and the Tiangong-1.
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