By 
October 16th, 2016
China’s Shenzhou-11 atop Long March booster.
Credit: CCTV
China’s next piloted space mission is ready for liftoff at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.
The spacecraft launch is scheduled at 07:30 on Monday, October 17, local Beijing time. (7:30 p.m. eastern time, Sunday)
The Long March-2F carrier rocket to hurl the two-person Shenzhou-11 craft into Earth orbit is under final fueling and checkout processes.
Shenzhou-11 will carry two male astronauts, veteran space traveler, Jing Haipeng and first-time flyer, 38-year old, Chen Dong.
Shenzhou-11 will carry two male astronauts, veteran space traveler, Jing Haipeng (left) and first-time flyer, 38-year old, Chen Dong.
Crew photos: ChinaSpaceflight.com
The 50-year-old Jing will be commander of the mission. It will be Jing’s third spaceflight following his Shenzhou-7 mission in 2008 and Shenzhou-9 mission in 2012.
Month-long voyage
Two days after launch, the spacecraft will dock with the orbiting space lab Tiangong-2. The astronauts will stay in the space lab for 30 days. Doing so would mark the longest-ever spaceflight for Chinese astronauts.
The mission of Shenzhou-11 is a key to improve space station building techniques.
Credit: CCTV
Shenzhou-11 will dock with orbiting space lab Tiangong-2 within two days after launch.
After a month attached to the space lab, the Shenzhou-11 spaceship will separate with Tiangong-2 and return to Earth within one day.
Credit: CCTV
More experiments
The Shenzhou-11 mission aims to transport personnel and materials between Earth and Tiangong-2, and examine rendezvous, docking and return technologies.
In a press conference, Chen Dong described the upcoming mission:
“The features of this mission are long duration with more experiments,” Chen said. “We have improved capacities to deal with on-orbit emergencies, first-aid capacities and capacities to conduct space experiments. I think only when we treat the ground training as the real mission in space, can we be confident and calm enough to deal with the real mission easily as we were trained on the ground,” he said.
Credit: CSU
Veteran space flyer, Jing Haipeng, commander of Shenzhou-11explained:
“As an astronaut to conduct missions more than once, I think it is our dream,” Jing said. “This time I have the honor toconduct my third space mission, and I want to express my thanks for my motherland and the people, for the efforts and support from thousands of aerospace science and technology staff. I will stay true to the mission and do my best to be a good astronaut.”
Credit: CSU
Trio of alterations
At a press conference at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center Spokeswoman,Wu Ping said the main functions and technical parameters of Shenzhou-11 remain almost the same as that of Shenzhou-10, she said.
Wu pointed to a trio of alterations that were made to satisfy the coming flight’s needs and further improve its reliability and safety and to verity the future space technology.
“The first is to satisfy the needs of this space flight mission. We adjusted the orbit control strategy and flight procedure. The purpose is to satisfy the needs of the change of the rendezvous docking orbit and return orbit from 343 kilometers to 393 kilometers,” Wu said.
At the same time, she added, the layout of the cargo loading was optimized and adjusted in order to further improve the transportation capabilities of the flight.
Tiangong-2 satellite deployer.
Credit: CSU
“The second is to further improve safety and reliability. We newly mounted the broad-band relay communication terminal. The purpose is to significantly enlarge the coverage rate of the telemetry tracking and communication and elevate the space-and-ground communication support capabilities when the spaceship altitude is changing rapidly,” Wu said. “This thus improved the safety of the astronauts and the reliability of the spaceship.”
Wu said that the third is to verify the future space technology. “To satisfy the space station’s long-life requirements in the future, we made some upgrades in the equipment of docking measurement of Shenzhou-11.”
To watch the launch, go to CCTV-News, China’s preeminent 24-hour English language television channel:
Posted in Space News
