Tag: Shenzhou

The decision by China to launch their next Shenzhou manned capsule unmanned has made at least one China space expert worried.

Why the sudden change? It seems clear that there must be technical issues at work, and they must be fairly serious. Statements in the Chinese media hint at performing tests on the small tunnel connecting the Shenzhou spacecraft to the Tiangong module after docking. If we decode the typically vague reportage, it seems fair to assume that there could be some sort of technical problem with the pressurization of this tunnel. This problem could have been exposed during the Shenzhou 8 docking.

China on the march! The next flight of their Shenzhou manned spacecraft could be a three week unmanned mission designed to test rendezvous and docking with their soon-to-launch Tiangong 1 space laboratory.