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China will launch the third test flight of its fledgling space program within days, sending a model of an astronaut into orbit in preparation for a future manned mission, it was reported Friday. The Shenzhou III (Divine Vessel III) craft will take off from the Jiuquan Space Launch Center in northwest Gansu province in "a couple of days" the Beijing-backed Wen Wei Po newspaper said, citing unnamed sources at the launch site. The vessel will be sent into orbit by a Long March 2F carrier rocket, the report said. The launch date had not been affected by the worst sand storms in years to hit the region, which have swept the northwest of China, including Beijing, over recent days, the sources added. China's space program, which aims to make the country the third nation to put a human into space after the United States and the former Soviet Union, is notoriously secretive and rarely publicizes launches in advance. Earlier this month Chinese state press said the third flight was imminent, but conceded that an astronaut would not be put into space until next year at the earliest. The Shenzhou III launch had been delayed because of problems with "product quality", leading space administrator Hu Shixiang told the China News Service at the time. The first unmanned test flight of the Shenzhou program was in November 1999, when the Shenzhou I orbited the earth 14 times in a 12-hour mission aimed mainly at testing launch and re-entry capabilities. The Shenzhou II, launched on January 9, 2001, orbited the earth 108 times and tested life support systems before returning nearly a week later to a press blackout that left Western analysts suspecting a re-entry failure. Chinese officials denied this. Space officials have said that a goal of China's manned space program is to put a Chinese astronaut on the moon one day. All rights reserved. © 2002 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse. Related Links SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express 
Shenzhou-3 Design Changes Cause Lengthy Mission Delay
Beijing - Mar 13, 2002A senior Chinese space official revealed Monday that problems with internal systems of the Shenzhou-3 (SZ-3) spacecraft was the major cause for the lengthy delay in launching the third test flight of China's future manned spacecraft a Beijing newspaper reported. |
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