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China astronauts blast confidently into space
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-10-12 19:54
China's second manned spacecraft blasted off from a remote northwestern
launch site on Wednesday, two years after the country joined an elite club of
space powers.
Chinese astronauts Fei Junlong (L) and Nie
Haisheng wave as they walk to the launch tower of the Jiuquan Satellite
Launch Center in northwest China's Gansu Province October 12, 2005.
China's second manned spacecraft blasted off from a remote northwestern
launch site just two years after the country joined an elite club of space
powers. [Reuters] | An elated Premier Wen Jiabao
and other leaders were in Jiuquan to witness the launch, which has raised
China's astronautic profile alongside new-found diplomatic and economic clout.
"You will once again show that the Chinese people have the will, confidence
and capability to mount scientific peaks ceaselessly," Xinhua news agency quoted
Wen as telling the astronauts.
Fei Junlong, 40, and Nie Haisheng, 41, colonels in the People's Liberation
Army, were handpicked from 14 fighter pilots and had been in the running for
China's first manned space launch in 2003.
"There is nothing to worry about," state television quoted the pair as saying
before Shenzhou VI lifted off as light snow fell. "We will accomplish the
mission resolutely. See you in Beijing."
"I feel good," Fei, a native of China's richest city, Kunshan, said minutes
after the blast-off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, deep in the desert
of the northwestern province of Gansu.
State television broadcast the lift-off live and showed the pair inside the
Shenzhou capsule waving at the camera after the spacecraft entered orbit.
They later showed the pair flipping through flight manuals and pushing
buttons by computer screens.
The capsule, based on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft developed in the late
1960s and still in service, is due to touch down in the remote northern region
of Inner Mongolia on Monday.
The launch came just a day after the Communist Party wrapped up a key meeting
to map out the development of the world's seventh-largest economy for the next
five years. It also came as China opens its 10th National Games, dubbed its
mini- Olympic Games, ahead of the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
China had stressed on Tuesday that its space program was
peaceful and it did not want to enter any arms race in space.
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