China will postpone the launch of its third manned space mission
Shenzhou VII spacecraft for about half a year to 2008, a senior
consultant to the country's space program said yesterday.
"There is nothing wrong. We just need more time to prepare for
the mission," Huang Chunping, chief consultant for China's manned
launching vehicle system, said in an interview with Xinhua News
Agency.
Tang Xianming, director of the China Manned Space
Flight?Engineering Office, announced last year that the next
manned mission would take place in 2007 and would include a
spacewalk.
The timetable depends on when researchers can tackle the key
problem of the space suit, which will play a critical role in the
anticipated space mission that includes a one-man spacewalking,
said Huang, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese
People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
Huang, commander-in-chief of the rocket system for Shenzhou V,
China's first manned mission, is in Beijing attending the Fourth
Session of the CPPCC National Committee, which started on
Friday afternoon and will last about 10 days till March 13.
The Shenzhou VII spacecraft is a complicated program, which will
involve careful design, tests, modification, trial production,
assessment by experts and experiments before final production,
according to Huang.
He promised that China is fully capable of tackling all
technological problems.
The Shenzhou VII program is expected to carry three astronauts,
while its predecessor Shenzhou VI transported two into space for a
five-day tour in October last year.
China's first spaceman Yang Liwei made a 21-hour orbital tour
aboard Shenzhou V in October 2003, making China the third country
after the US and former Soviet Union to achieve the feat.
Also yesterday, a senior space scientist said China's moon-probe
program will pave the way for the country's high-tech breakthroughs
and innovation and will help train a large group of top
scientists.
Ouyang Ziyuan, an academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and
also the country's chief scientist on the moon-probe program, said
at a symposium held in Guiyang,
Guizhou Province that China will benefit from its probe of the
moon, particularly in the field of scientific innovation.
The moon probe demands lots of advanced technologies in the
aspects of rocket communications, observing and control, remote
sensing and manufacturing of lots of complicated instruments, the
scientist said.
He said the research progress of all the above mentioned
technologies will also drive the development of some fundamental
science research, which will ultimately upgrade country's science
and technology.
This has already been illustrated by the US and the former
Soviet Union, which applied and developed their moon probe
technologies in many fields for both military and civil uses.
Currently, China plans to invest 1.4 billion yuan (US$175
million) in the first phase of the program and funding will
increase in the next second and third phases, Ouyang said.
He said the investment accounts for a very little of the
country's gross domestic product (GDP) but it will be meaningful
for China's economic and sustainable development.
In the 20th century, humans performed six manned moon flights
and three unmanned missions, collecting 382 kilograms of samples
from the moon and a great amount of scientific data.
(Xinhua News Agency March 5, 2006)