September 17, 2008

China's Space Station

"God 10" launching space laboratory built (Google translation of article in Chinese)

"Ming Pao - the Jiuquan Satellite Launch CUI Ji-jun, director of the Center recently revealed that this year the launch of manned spacecraft "God 7", "God 8" and "God 9" will be unmanned spacecraft, "God 10" would be a set People spacecraft, launched after the craft and the docking target, after the completion of docking will create space laboratory."

Editor's note: "Shenzhou" translates as "God". This concept of a small modular space station is not exactly new. Astronautix.com features a photo of some sort of Chinese space station and a history of its development. It would seem that Shenzhou 7 will leave its free-flying Orbital Module in orbit as has been the case recent flights. Then, over the next several years, two unmanned Shenzhou flights 8 and 9 will be launched and will dock with the Shenzhou 7 orbital module. After that Shenzhou 10 will be launched with a crew and dock with the mini-space station. This would be a human-tended facility - not one with permanent inhabitants.


Posted by kcowing at September 17, 2008 8:52 PM
Comments

Good! Maybe this will convince Congress of the need to keep a strong US presence on the ISS.

Posted by: Josh at September 17, 2008 10:07 PM

"Shenzhou" is I believe better translated as "Divine" . While I am unable to reproduce the pictogram here, I believe the idea behind the name is "Divine Vessel"

Posted by: Roci at September 18, 2008 12:04 AM

Shenzhou refers to China, it meant divine state, not divine vessel.

Posted by: Richard at November 17, 2008 6:18 AM
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