China's space mission sets new record

China's space mission sets new record

By staying in orbit for day two, Shenzhou VI entered the record books becoming China's longest manned spacecraft ever.

When the clock struck 9:00 a.m. (local time) on Thursday, Shenzhou VI had circled the Earth 16 times, covering 680,000 kms in space during their first-day space flight with one orbit taking close to an hour and a half. Earlier, Yang Liwei, who was on Shenzhou-5 almost two years to this day, had travelled 600,000 kms in space in 21 hours and 23 minutes.

It was almost the perfect birthday gift for one of the Astronauts Nie Haisheng who turned 41 on Thursday. Nie' birthday became even more special as his daughter Tianxiang wished him Happy Birthday late on Wednesday evening. And Nie's message to his daughter was that the earth looked gorgeous from up there.

Showering her blessings on Nie, wife Wang Jie prayed for the mission handed over to him by the nation to be successful and also for his safe return to earth, which literally had Nie Haisheng in tears.

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Along with his fellow Astronaut Fei Junlong, Nie will conduct tests on the space flight's steadiness and immovability. Among the various experiments to be carried out by the two men in space will be putting on and removing their space outfits and also opening and shutting the doorways.

Another interesting try-out will be to intentionally apply more force during their movements in order to examinee the amount of turbulence caused on the spaceship.

According to China's official media, Shenzhou VI will orbit the Earth around 80 times in five days prior to its landing in Inner Mongolia.

Beijing sees the success of its space missions a matter of great pride and national honour as well as a means of gaining international reputation.

Keeping this goal in mind, China expects to commence a space station inside half a decade and also desires to repeat what Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin achieved way back in 1969.

The US on Wednesday applauded China on Shenzhou VI successful entry into space. Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli praised China's effort of becoming on the third nations to send astronauts in space.

According to NASA, China's space mission has reiterated its standing among the privileged set of countries with successful manned space missions together with US and Russia.

Apart from the US, Japan, Russia, Singapore and Cameroon were among the other nations to send their wishes to China on its record-breaking achievement.