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China launches unmanned spacecraft

Thursday, 03 November 2011 03:37

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China has successfully launched an unmanned spacecraft into orbit from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

The Long March-2F rocket blasted off from the spaceport in northwest China before dawn on Tuesday, lofting the Shenzhou 8 spacecraft into an initial orbit 200 kilometers (124 miles) above Earth, Reuters reported.

The spacecraft will then dock into the Tiangong-1 module in less than two days at about 340 kilometers above Earth. The 10.5 meter-long unmanned Tiangong-1, launched on September 29, is part of China's exploratory preparations for a space station.

"Mastering the technology of rendezvous and docking will lay a firm foundation for China to build a space station," Zhou Jianping, the chief designer of China's Manned Space Engineering Project, told the Xinhua news agency.

If the mission is a success, the next stage will be two similar docking exercises in 2012, with at least one carrying astronauts, a spokeswoman for China's space program said on Monday.

On Monday, an official of the country's space program announced that China may send female taikonauts into space during space docking missions next year.

Taikonaut is a Chinese word that means astronaut.