China planning manned mission to its own space station, didn’t want to be on the ISS anyway

China planning manned mission to its own space station, didnt want to be on the ISS anyway

State news agency Xinhua is reporting that China is planning to launch a manned spacecraft later this month. A Shenzhou-9 capsule and rocket are already in place, and when it launches it'll manually dock with the nation's space station: Tiangong-1. The nation is moving quickly to capitalize on its successes last year, after learning how to dock two objects in high-speed orbit. Once both are linked up, the three astronauts on-board would move across to perform scientific experiments before returning to Earth in the craft, as you do.

[Image Credit: China Daily]

China planning manned mission to its own space station, didn't want to be on the ISS anyway originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jun 2012 06:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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