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Shenzhou 6

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   CAPTION: Shenzhou 6 (神舟六号)

                        Mission insignia
                       Mission statistics
        Mission name:      Shenzhou 6 (神舟六号)
   Number of crew members: 2
         Launch pad:       Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre
           Launch:         12 October 2005
                           01:00:03 UTC
          Landing:         16 October 2005
                           20:33 UTC
                           Amugulang pasture, Hongger Township
                           Siziwang Banner, Inner Mongolia
          Duration:        4 days, 19 hours, 33 min
      Number of Orbits:    75
                           Crew photo
   L-R: Fèi Jùnlóng, Niè Hǎishèng)
   L-R: Fèi Jùnlóng, Niè Hǎishèng)
                           Navigation

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   Shenzhou 5       Shenzhou 7

   Shenzhou 6 ( Simplified Chinese: 神舟六号) was the second human spaceflight
   of the People's Republic of China, launched on 12 October 2005 on a
   Long March rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre. The
   Shenzhou spacecraft carried a crew of Fèi Jùnlóng (费俊龙) and Niè
   Hǎishèng (聂海胜) for five days in low Earth orbit. It launched a few days
   before the second anniversary of China's first human spaceflight,
   Shenzhou 5.

   The crew were able to change out of their new lighter space suits,
   conduct scientific experiments, and enter the orbital module for the
   first time, giving them access to toilet facilities. The exact
   activities of the crew were kept secret but thought to include military
   reconnaissance. It landed in the Siziwang Banner of Inner Mongolia on
   16 October 2005, the same site as the previous manned and unmanned
   Shenzhou flights.

Crew

     * Fèi Jùnlóng, Commander
     * Niè Hǎishèng, Flight engineer

Backup crew

     * Team 1: Liu Boming, Jing Haipeng
     * Team 2: Zhai Zhigang, Wu Jie

   This is the first spaceflight for both taikonauts. The crew was
   introduced to the Chinese populace and international media about five
   hours before the launch. Niè Hǎishèng celebrated his 41st birthday in
   space.

   Huang Chunping, the chief designer of the Long March 2F rocket, was
   quoted in the Beijing Times as saying the astronauts who would fly the
   mission were selected from a pool of three pairs. Five pairs of
   astronauts trained for the flight and about one month before launch the
   two pairs with the lowest performance were dropped. The Ta Kung Pao
   newspaper had reported that Zhai Zhigang and Nie Haisheng were the
   leading pair, after having been in the final group of three for
   Shenzhou 5.

Mission highlights

Launch

   The taikonauts arrived at the spacecraft about 2 hours and 45 minutes
   before the launch and the hatch closed 30 minutes after their arrival.
   At 01:00:03.583 UTC on October 12 Shenzhou 6 lifted off from the launch
   pad at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre. The launch phase was reported
   to be normal with the escape rocket separating 120 seconds after launch
   when the rocket was travelling 1,300 m/s (4300 ft/s). Sixteen seconds
   later the four booster rockets separating at an altitude of 52 km (32
   miles). The payload fairing and first stage detached 200 seconds after
   launch. The second stage burned for a further 383 seconds and the
   spacecraft separated from the rocket 200 km (124 miles) above the
   Yellow Sea. The spacecraft then used its own propulsion system to place
   it into a 211 km by 345 km (131 by 214 statute miles) orbit, with an
   inclination of 42.4 degrees, about 21 minutes after launch. At 01:39
   UTC Chen Bingde, the Chief Commander of the Chinese space program,
   announced the launch was successful. The crew ate their first meal in
   space at 03:11 UTC.

   Before the flight, the launch time had been the object of speculation
   by the Chinese media. For several months before the planned launch its
   time was only given as mid-October, or even late-September. Then on 23
   September it was reported by the Hong Kong-based news agency China News
   Service that the launch was tentatively scheduled for 03:00 UTC on 13
   October. This launch time was confirmed two weeks later by Jiang
   Jingshan, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. But then on
   10 October an official from the technical department of the Jiuquan
   Satellite Launch Centre said the launch was then scheduled for 01:00
   UTC on 12 October. This new launch time could have been designed to
   dodge the cold weather which had been forecast to hit the area.
   Assembly of the rocket was reported complete on 26 September. On 4
   October, the Shenzhou 6 spacecraft was attached to the CZ-2F rocket,
   also known as Shenjian.

   Unlike the unmanned Shenzhou flights, Shenzhou 5 and 6 were launched
   during daylight hours to provide greater safety in case of abort. The
   launch was televised live with China Central Television selling
   advertising for RMB¥2.56 million (US$316,000) for five seconds, to
   RMB¥8.56 million (US$1 million) for 30 seconds. A video camera had been
   added to the rocket and images of it were broadcast during the ascent
   and the separation of the Shenzhou spacecraft.

   Shortly after launch, recovery crews began searching a region from the
   Badain Jaran Desert in Inner Mongolia to Shaanxi for the launch escape
   tower, booster rockets, first stage and payload fairing. Of particular
   interest was the " black box" of the rocket, which contained telemetry
   that may not have been downlinked during the launch phase. It was found
   45 minutes after launch somewhere near Otog Banner. It was first
   sighted by a herdswoman, Lian Hua, about 1.5 km from her home. Other
   wreckage from the launch was found and destroyed at its impact location
   or brought back to Jiuquan.

   President Hu Jintao was present at the Beijing Aerospace Control Centre
   to watch the launch. Premier Wen Jiabao was present at the Jiuquan
   Satellite Launch Centre.

Five days in orbit

   The first of several orbit changing maneuvers happened as planned at
   07:54:45, with a 63 second burn to circularize the orbit. Based on
   United States Space Command orbital elements, it is in a 332 by 336 km
   (206 by 209 statute miles) orbit. After about an hour and a half, the
   hatch between the re-entry and orbital modules was opened and, for the
   first time, crew were able to enter the second living compartment of
   the Shenzhou spacecraft. Fèi Jùnlóng was the first to enter, while Niè
   Hǎishèng remained in the reentry module. They would swap positions
   about three hours later.

   At 13:32 UTC, Niè and Fèi had a seven minute conversation with their
   wives and children who were in Mission Control. Niè's daughter sang "
   Happy Birthday to You", as his birthday is 13 October.

   The activities of the crew were not fully revealed by the Chinese. Only
   vague references to experiments were made, though some were made
   public. One experiment involved the crew testing the reaction of the
   spacecraft to movement within the orbital and reentry modules. They
   moved between the modules, opening and closing the hatches and
   operating equipment with "more strength" than normally required.

   A second orbital maneuver occurred at 21:56 on October 13. It raised
   the orbit that had been lowered due to atmospheric drag, and lasted 6.5
   seconds.

   On October 15, Niè and Fèi had a two minute conversation with President
   Hu Jintao, beginning at 08:29. During the conversation, Hu told them
   "The motherland and people are proud of you. I hope you will
   successfully complete your task by carrying out the mission calmly and
   carefully and have a triumphant return".

Re-entry and landing

   The re-entry process began at 19:44 on October 16 when the orbital
   module separated as planned from the rest of the spacecraft. Unlike
   with the Soyuz spacecraft, this is done before the re-entry burn,
   allowing the orbital module to stay in orbit for extended months-long
   missions or to act as a docking target for later flights. The orbital
   module fired its engines twice on 19 October to give it a circular
   orbit with a height of 355 km (220 miles).

   One minute after this separation, the engines on the service module
   ignited over the coast of West Africa to slow the spacecraft. At 20:07,
   the re-entry module separated and five minutes later the re-entry
   proper began, as the Shenzhou capsule entered the top of the
   atmosphere, over China. The communications blackout that occurs during
   re-entry started at 20:16 and two minutes later radio communication was
   regained with the spacecraft. The main parachute opened and the capsule
   began to slowly descend to a landing on the Inner Mongolia northern
   grasslands at 4:33 a.m. local time (20:33 UTC). The capsule landed
   approximately 1 km (about 1000 yards) from its planned target.

   About half an hour after landing the recovery forces had the hatch of
   the spacecraft open and first Fèi and then Niè emerged. Hou Ying, chief
   designer of the landing site system, said the recovery was improved
   over that of Shenzhou 5. After medical check-ups and a light meal the
   astronauts were put on a special plane bound for Beijing, where they
   were placed into medical isolation for the following two weeks. At
   21:46, Chen Bingde had declared the entire mission to be a success. The
   capsule was returned to Beijing by train and handed over to China
   Research Institute of Space Technology at Changping railway station.

   The orbital module continued to orbit the Earth, gathering more
   information from experiments onboard. The module also gave Chinese
   mission controllers experience at long-duration spaceflights. After
   2,920 orbits of the Earth, its active mission ended on April 15, 2006.
   It is currently still in orbit, and will reenter when its orbit
   sufficiently decays.

   There were two planned landing sites for the mission. The primary site
   was the banner of Siziwang in Inner Mongolia. The secondary site was at
   the Jiuquan launch site. In addition, there were recovery forces at
   Yinchuan, Yulin and Handan. It is also possible for the Shenzhou
   spacecraft to splashdown in the ocean should the need arise, with
   further recovery crews in the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the
   Pacific Ocean.

   Some Chinese diplomats are trained and equipped for any emergency
   landing at sites that are not on Chinese territory. Zhang Shuting,
   chief designer of the emergency and rescue system, has said that
   emergency landing sites have been identified in Australia, Southwest
   Asia, North Africa, Western Europe, the United States and South
   America. The diplomatic mission nearest to the landing site will be
   given the task to head any rescue mission if necessary. The Chinese
   government had advised Australia that emergency landing sites have been
   identified in New South Wales, Queensland, the Northern Territory and
   Western Australia. Emergency Management Australia, the Australian
   government agency that co-ordinates the response to major
   contingencies, has said they are ready to deal with any emergencies
   that arise during spaceflights. However, the return module is designed
   to allow access from the outside only to those with a special key. A
   copy of this key has not been made available to Australian officials,
   but it was reported that an unnamed Chinese military attaché at the
   Chinese embassy in Canberra had one.

Upgrades

   The Chinese space officials have said that the Long March 2F rocket
   featured a "fire security system" on the escape tower. Speculation on
   what this means ranges from better fail-safes to stop accidental
   firings, to the addition of a fire extinguisher. The Wen Wei Po
   newspaper have reported that the rocket appeared the same as that used
   for Shenzhou 5 except that a "transition segment" was visible at the
   top of the Shenzhou 6 stack, attached to one end of the orbital module.

   China Aerospace Science and Technology, the major manufacturer of both
   the Shenzhou spacecraft and the Long March rocket have said that
   although the flight featured a second astronaut and was much longer
   than Shenzhou 5, the rocket and spacecraft did not weigh much more due
   to optimisation of its systems. Only 200 kg (about 440 lb) more was
   needed for the second astronaut. Among the amenities on board for the
   crew was hot food, sleeping bags and essential sanitary equipment. The
   sleeping bag was hooked to a wall of the orbital module and the crew
   had alternating sleep periods. The shock absorbers in the crew seats
   were redesigned so as to provide more safety to the crew in case the
   braking rockets fail to fire just before touchdown. The flight
   telemetry recorder on the spacecraft had its memory increased to about
   1 gigabyte, and the read/write speed was now 10 times as fast as the
   computers carried on previous flights. It was also about half the size
   of that carried on Shenzhou 5. Overall, 95% of the Shenzhou 6 space
   capsule is indigenously designed/produced in China, the highest rate in
   comparison to the previous ones.

   The menu included pineapple-filled mooncakes, green vegetables, braised
   bamboo shoots, rice, and bean congee. In total there was 40 kg (about
   88 lb) of food on board. A somewhat strange aspect of the mission
   reported in the Chinese press was the fixation on the purity of
   drinking water for the astronauts, where it was claimed that their
   water reportedly comes from a mine 1.7 km (1.1 miles) underground and
   was disinfected with an electrolytic silver solution. It has thus been
   said by the press that they are drinking the "purest water in China".
   Since it is commonly known that water produced by a process of reverse
   osmosis and deionization would produce water of a far higher purity
   than any naturally found underground, it is possible that the use of
   water specifially from one of China's deepest mines may have been used
   to carry a symbolic meaning to the mission.

   It had been reported that, on Shenzhou 5, astronaut Yang Liwei suffered
   from a "minor heartache" after his launch. It is thought that this
   refers to space adaptation syndrome experienced by about one third of
   astronauts during the first few days of a spaceflight. The People's
   Daily said that the interior design of the spacecraft has been changed
   to hopefully lessen the likelihood of nausea and other symptoms.

Experiments

   It was announced in July 2005 that Shenzhou 6 would carry one
   experiment involving the sperm of pigs from Rongchang County,
   Chongqing. But on October 11 it was revealed by Liu Luxiang, director
   of the Centre for Space Breeding at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural
   Sciences, that there were no plans for animal or plant seeds on the
   flight. He said the focus of Shenzhou 6 was the physical reactions of
   the crew to the space environment.

   Morris Jones who writes for SpaceDaily.com has speculated that the lack
   of any other announced experiments suggested that the mission could be
   oriented more toward the military. The crew could have operated a large
   surveillance film camera, supplementing the unmanned recoverable
   satellite program.

Tracking

   Yuanwang 2 in Waitemata Harbour, Auckland, New Zealand on 27 October
   2005. The ship was resupplying after being at sea to support the flight
   Enlarge
   Yuanwang 2 in Waitemata Harbour, Auckland, New Zealand on 27 October
   2005. The ship was resupplying after being at sea to support the flight

   There are 20 land-based tracking stations in the Chinese space
   telemetry network. These are supplemented by four Yuanwang-series
   tracking ships. The Beijing Aerospace Command global map showed their
   positions to be:
     * Yuanwang 1 in the Yellow Sea
     * Yuanwang 2 about 1500 km (about 900 statute miles) southwest of
       French Polynesia
     * Yuanwang 3 off the Namibian coast
     * Yuanwang 4 off the coast of Western Australia in the Indian Ocean

   Only one other land-based tracking station is outside China — at
   Swakopmund in Namibia.

   Shortly after the Shenzhou 5 flight in 2003, the Pacific nation of
   Kiribati established diplomatic ties with the Republic of China
   (Taiwan), leading the People's Republic of China (PRC) to cut off
   diplomatic ties under its One-China policy. Following this, the PRC has
   dismantled a tracking station that had been built on Tarawa, the
   capital island of Kiribati, to track spaceflights.

International reaction

Statements from the Greater China area

     * The Central Government of the People's Republic of China - Premier
       Wen Jiabao reiterated China's policy for peaceful use of space and
       hailed the successful launch.
     * Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of
       China - Chief Executive Donald Tsang congratulated the motherland
       on the successful launch.
     * The Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) of the Republic of China
       (Taiwan) - Lien Chan, honorary party chairman, said the "great
       scientific achievement is worth of joy and pride".

Foreign countries and international organizations

     * Flag of Australia  Australia - Foreign Minister Alexander Downer
       stated that "Australia warmly welcomes the success of China's
       mission into space".
     * Flag of Bulgaria  Bulgaria - President Georgi Parvanov sent a
       letter to Hu Jintao congratulating the PRC on the "remarkable
       achievements in peaceful exploitation of the outer space".
     * Flag of Cameroon  Cameroon - Ndoumba Eloungou Nestor, secretary of
       Cameroon's External Relations Ministry said the launch encouraged a
       vast number of developing countries.
     * Flag of France  France - President Jacques Chirac congratulated the
       successful return of the spacecraft.
     * Flag of Japan  Japan - Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda
       hoped the crew would have a safe return and said development in
       China of manned spacecraft was not a "military threat".
     * Flag of Russia  Russia - Nikolai Moiseyev, deputy head of the
       Russian Federal Space Agency said "another power has joined the
       space club" and that Russia looked "forward to further cooperation
       with them in all areas".
     * Flag of Singapore  Singapore - President S.R. Nathan sent a
       congratulatory letter to President Hu Jintao saying it was a proud
       moment for all Chinese.
     * Flag of Uganda  Uganda - Minister of State for Information Nsaba
       Buturo said the launch will stop the domination of outer space by a
       few countries in the world.
     * United Nations - A spokesperson for United Nations
       Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said that Annan extended his "warm
       congratulations…on the safe and successful completion of its second
       mission into space".
     * Flag of United States  United States - Deputy State Department
       spokesman Adam Ereli congratulated China on the launch of its
       second manned spacecraft, and applauded its success as only the
       third nation with this capability.
          + NASA - Administrator Michael Griffin congratulated China on
            their launch and wished them a safe journey.
     * European Space Agency - European astronaut Frank De Winne wished
       the crew a smooth journey. He commented on the fact that Europe had
       yet to create its own independent manned spacecraft.

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