Article Posted on : - Sep 13, 2008

HONG KONG (BNS): China’s Shenzhou VII manned spacecraft would lift off on September 25. The mission would be China’s first in which an astronaut would do space walk.

The Shenzhou VII would be carried to space by Long March IIF rocket.

The astronaut on board the spacecraft will carry out the space walk after five orbits at an altitude of 341 kilometers. A satellite launch during the flight will help the mission controls to obtain three-dimensional photos of the spacecraft and the space walk, according to reports. The astronaut’s activities outside the vehicle will last almost an hour.

The Oriental Morning Post reports that Shenzhou VII’s lift-off is planned for September 25, when slight wind and clear ground visibility are expected, the newspaper quoted Huang Chunping, Rocket System consultant for the Chinese Manned Space Program as saying.

Shenzhou VII will lift off in daylight when conditions are expected to be no rainfall, wind velocity at less than eight meters per second, and ground visibility at more than 20 kilometers. There should be no thunder or lightning within a 30 to 40 kilometer radius of the launch site for a period of eight hours before the launch, and one hour after it.

The report quoted experts as saying that the spacecraft would soon be basking in the late-September sunshine and the scheduled angle of the sun will be favorable for the astronaut to conduct extra-vehicular activities.