Briefs: China space videos; China space station speculation
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Phil Mills sent me a note with the following graphic that he came across, which
shows Shenzhou 7 with the EVA, but in the background is another vehicle which looks like a space station module joined to a Shenzhou propulsion/service module. This is shown docking with another Shenzhou. The Chinese have announced that the Shenzhou 8 and 9 will be unmanned and will be part of a space station assembly followed by the manned Shenzhou 10. Also they announced that Shenzhou 7 was the last launch using the Chang Zheng CZ-2F launch vehicle. The CZ-5 is to be used in the future.
Phil postulates
that Shenzhou 8 will be the first launch using the new CZ-5 and will be the space station module. It will be followed by unmanned standard Shenzhou 9 which will rendezvous and dock to achieve first Chinese Docking. If the space station module has second docking port in the same way as the Russian Pirs airlock module and the Shenzhou propulsion/service module separates this will leave the second port clear for the manned Shenzhou 10. This last part is still an unknown at the moment but this plan matches the illustration.
Posted 09/26/08 | 06:53:53 by TopSpacer | Filed under: Chinese Space Transport
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