China: China plans to launch its first manned space flight between October 15th and 17th, the official Xinhua news agency said yesterday, quoting an unnamed official in charge of the country's space programme.
A successful mission would make China only the third country to put a man into orbit, more than four decades after the former Soviet Union and the United States accomplished the feat.
The Shenzhou V spacecraft would lift off from the Jiuquan launch centre in the Gobi desert in northwestern China and orbit the earth 14 times, Xinhua said.
"Now all preparatory work for the launch is progressing smoothly," Xinhua quoted the official as saying.
It did not say how many astronauts would be taking part in the maiden voyage, but that a team had been trained for the mission.
China has kept a veil of secrecy on details of the launch. State media, however, have said up to three "taikonauts" could be aboard the craft, although the Shanghai-based Liberation Daily said on Thursday that just a single astronaut would be on board.
The spacecraft, whose Chinese name translates as "Divine Ship", would first fly in an elliptical orbit, within 200 km of Earth at the closest point and 350 km at the furthest, before settling into a circular orbit at 343 km, it said.
Sources at two major state-run television stations told Reuters this week the launch, barring bad weather, was provisionally set for the morning of October 15th.
Any failure would raise questions about the necessity of a space programme in a country where 140 million people live on less than $1 a day.- (Reuters)