China to Launch 3 to 4 Test Flights Before Sending Man into SpaceSources from the Chinese aerospace industry said Tuesday that China needs three to four more test flights of unmanned space aircraft before it can send a human into space.The country's second experimental unmanned spaceship rocketed into space early this morning. "A manned space flight will be feasible when technological preparations are mature after these tests," an expert from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation said. He also said that China's ambitious three-phase space program was initiated in 1992. In the first phase, unmanned and later manned space vehicles will be put into space, in which astronauts may conduct scientific experiments and surveys above the earth at perigee orbit, and safely return to earth. In the second phase, astronauts will be able to come out of the capsule to conduct studies, and create space stations which operate on their own for most of the time and are only taken care of by man for only a brief period of time, will be put into space. In the end, larger space stations with the ability to house astronauts for long periods of time will be built. Over the past seven years, Chinese scientists and engineers have been fulfilling this mission step by step, he said. On November 20, 1999, the country's first unmanned spacecraft " Shenzhou" took off into space and did 14 orbits of the planet Earth during a 21-hour journey in space. The United States and Russia have been the only countries in the world that have sent a human into space. |
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