Meet the Shenzhou family, China’s independently-designed spacecraft (8)

On Sept. 29, target spacecraft Tiangong-1 was launched from Jiuquan, Gansu province, shortly followed by Shenzhou VIII on Nov. 1. The two spacecraft docked twice, on Nov. 3 and 4. Shenzhou VIII returned on Nov. 11, while Tiangong-1 switched orbit on Nov. 17 and entered long-term operation in space, waiting to dock with Shenzhou IX and Shenzhou X. The 50-day mission eventually proved to be a success.

Manned spacecraft Shenzhou IX was sent into space by a Long March-2F carrier rocket on June 16, 2012. The spacecraft accommodated three astronauts, Jing Haipeng, Liu Wang and Liu Yang. The 33-year-old Liu Yang became the first Chinese woman in space. Shenzhou IX switched into automatic controlled flight mode on June 18 and automatically docked with Tiangong-1 hours later. On June 24, the two docked under manual operation by the astronauts. The team returned to Earth on June 29 after 13 days in space. Since then, Tiangong-1 has entered its automatic operation orbit.