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Taikonauts Ready for First SpaceWalk

Sebadoh – Tue, 2008 – 09 – 23 15:39

 

The Shenzhou VII spacecraft will blast off tomorrow with three astronauts aboard, one of whom will be the first Chinese to walk in space:

The taikonauts, as they are known in the mainland, will be equipped with space-age gadgets as well as down- to-earth pencils.

Responding to the challenge experienced by international experts in producing a writing instrument that works in no-gravity conditions, mainland scientists came up with the common lead pencil. Thicker than the earth variety, China's space pencil has a special carbon compound.

Shenzhou VII will release a small satellite to monitor the operation of the spacecraft itself and the progress of the spacewalk. During the mission, new satellite communications technology will be tried out as well.

China is using five satellite tracking ships to monitor the mission. They're now in place:

The final Yuanwang ship arrived at its destination on Monday, said Jian Shilong, director with the China Maritime Tracking and Control Department.

The ships will remotely track and support the Shenzhou VII space shuttle which will blast off in late September.

Four ships are on the Pacific ocean and one is on the Atlantic.

"In previous missions including the Shenzhou V and Shenzhou VI missions, only four tracking ships were deployed," Jian said. "We added one more to the Shenzhou VII mission to monitor the taikonaut's extra-vehicular activities."

Jian said the tracking ships will monitor the entire space walk and also keep tabs on the depressurization of the orbital module when taikonauts leave and re-enter the spaceship.

The Yuanwang ships can control the shuttle's solar panels, its orbit maneuvers and maintenance.

 In all, China boasts a fleet of six Yuanwang space tracking ships which have carried out 68 expeditions and traveled more than1.4 million sea miles in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans.

The tracking ships, combined with 20 terrestrial surveying stations, constitute China's space telemetry network.

Why the extra ship? Because the planned space walk is a big deal in Chinese popular culture -- presenting an unprecedented [communications] challenge for the Chinese, who want to provide seamless, high-quality live video feeds of the outing.

A space industry source explains:

The source said China had proved to the world it could maintain long-distance communication with its lunar project, but stable broadband communication had always been a barrier for Chinese technology. The deficiency meant China was still unable to compete with the US and Russia in the civilian commercial communication satellite markets.

But in the past couple of years, China had achieved several breakthroughs in antennas that were used for rapid communication with the Earth, and the space walk "will be a window to show how much China has caught up in this highly important field", the source said.

Because the antenna was directional and must be pointed to a small target area, the source said the astronaut would probably emerge from the spacecraft while orbiting over China, to enable the Chinese people to witness the event.

 And what will they do on the spacewalk? Nothing much, really:

When asked about what the astronaut will actually do outside the spacecraft Qi said he once suggested retrieving the national flag that hangs outside the spaceship. After consideration it was finally decided the astronaut would perform some test and control experiments. He added, "Whether it's fetching the national flag or doing some experiments, the astronaut will have to do something, so that it's not just a case of proving our ability to put someone outside the spaceship."

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Launched on the Web, Not For Real

A little too quick to publish, via AP and Yahoo!

BEIJING - A news story describing a successful launch of China's long-awaited space mission and including detailed dialogue between astronauts launched on the Internet Thursday, hours before the rocket had even left the ground. 
 
The country's official news agency Xinhua posted the article on its Web site Thursday, and remained there for much of the day before it was taken down.

A staffer from the Xinhuanet.com Web site who answered the phone Thursday said the posting of the article was a "technical error" by a technician. The staffer refused to give his name as is common among Chinese officials.

The Shenzhou 7 mission, which will feature China's first-ever spacewalk, is set to launch Thursday from Jiuquan in northwestern China between 9:07 a.m. EDT and 10:27 p.m. EDT.

The arcticle, dated two days from now on Sept. 27, vividly described the rocket in flight, complete with a sharply detailed dialogue between the three astronauts.

Excerpts are below:

"After this order, signal lights all were switched on, various data show up on rows of screens, hundreds of technicians staring at the screens, without missing any slightest changes ...

'One minute to go!'

'Changjiang No.1 found the target!'...

"The firm voice of the controller broke the silence of the whole ship. Now, the target is captured 12 seconds ahead of the predicted time ...

'The air pressure in the cabin is normal!'

"Ten minutes later, the ship disappears below the horizon. Warm clapping and excited cheering breaks the night sky, echoing across the silent Pacific Ocean."

Rocco Fanucci – Thu, 2008 – 09 – 25 09:27
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Hu Loved the Launch

Chinese President Hu extended warm congratulations:

"The successful launch marked the first victory of the Shenzhou-7 mission," Hu told Chinese experts and other work staff at the center after officials declared the spacecraft entered the preset orbit.

"On behalf of the Party Central Committee, the State Council and the Central Military Commission, I'd like to extend warm congratulations to all work staff and army forces participating in the mission," said Hu.

The manned spacecraft Shenzhou-7 blasted off on a Long March II-F carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the northwestern Gansu Province at 9:10 p.m., after a breathtaking countdown to another milestone on China's space journey.

Rocco Fanucci – Thu, 2008 – 09 – 25 09:32
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Chinese Space Walk

Nice job, taikonauts: 

As expected, on Saturday, Shenzhou VII’s commander, fighter pilot Zhai Zhigang, was the one who carried out the highly-anticipated space walk. Mr. Zhai emerged from the Shenzhou VII (which means “Divine Vessel” in Chinese) capsule to wave the Chinese flag. The 42-year-old fighter pilot stayed outside the space craft about 15 minutes. The other fighter pilots, also aged 42, remained inside the capsule, while Mr. Zhai became the first Chinese to carry out a space walk.

Astronaut Zhai Zhigang left the craft's orbital module at 4:39 pm (0839 GMT).

"I am here greeting the Chinese people and people of the whole world," the astronaut told mission control in Beijing.

After he was free of the module, fellow astronaut Liu Boming handed Zhai a Chinese flag, which Zhai waved as Earth floated in the background. Liu Boming, wearing a Russian spacesuit, assisted Zhai in exiting the orbiter while the third and final astronaut on the mission, Jing Haiping, remained in the re-entry module.

The crew had spent more than 11 hours Friday unpacking and assembling the suits and then underwent 100 minutes of training to get used to the get-ups.

Mr. Zhai made China the third nation to conduct a spacewalk after the United States and Russia. The three countries are also the only ones to have conducted manned space missions.

Although Zhai's maneuvers represented the 298th spacewalk of all time, it was a milestone for China. The space walk was a key experiment in China’s endeavor to prove its might not only on Earth, but also in space. China celebrated the space walk as a prelude to further exploration of areas which only Russia and the United States managed to reach.

 

Rocco Fanucci – Sun, 2008 – 09 – 28 11:55
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