SPACE WIRE
Space amateurs preparing to track China's first manned space flight
BEIJING (AFP) Oct 11, 2003
Thousands of amateur satellite trackers around the world are making preparations to spot China's first manned space flight, the Shenzhou V, as it orbits the earth 14 times in a mission to be launhed next week, a leading space expert said Saturday.

China's official Xinhua news agency announced that the flight would be launched from the Jiuquan Launch Center in northwestern Gansu province between Oct 15-17, while also providing coordinates of the orbit and the projected altitude of the flight.

"The Shenzhou V will be visible in the morning skies across Europe and the United States," James Oberg, a former official at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Houston and noted space expert, told AFP.

"There are hundreds, even thousands of amateurs around the world that will be hoping to catch a glimpse of the spaceship."

Oberg said that with computer programs available on the Internet the Xinhua information could be used to calculate the precise orbits of the Shenzhou V, allowing trackers to know exactly when the Shenzhou would be overhead in their part of the world.

The best view of the spaceship should come on the craft's final orbit as it flies over northeast China and the Korean Peninsula before heading toward Africa where the Shenzhou will fire retro-rockets in preparation for touch down in northern China's Inner Mongolia, he said.

"The final orbit before landing the Shenzhou V will go directly over North Korea which should give people there and in South Korea a spectacular view," Oberg said.

The spacecraft would appear about as bright as Polaris, the north star, but will be easy to spot by amateurs versed in tracking satellites, he said.

Previous flight paths and orbital data of the Shenzhou series of unmanned space flights are posted on the website www.svengrahn.pp.se, which is run by Sven Grahn, an employee of Sweden's space program.

Oberg said that the Shenzhou V flight plan was similar to the 21-hour, 14 orbit flight of Shenzhou I, the first in a series of unmanned Chinese space flights that flew in November 1999.

SPACE.WIRE