Fourteen astronauts, including China's first three taikonauts,
are now training and competing for places on the nation's third
manned space mission in October.
Yang Liwei, the nation's first taikonaut, and Fei Junlong and
Nie Haisheng, the second batch of taikonauts, are now training with
11 others, all hoping to be one of the three taikonauts aboard the
Shenzhou VII, China News Service reported today.
The Shenzhou VII taikonauts will walk in space for the first
time, the report said. Each move will be broadcast live, Pang
Zhihao, a researcher with the China Academy of Space Technology,
said in a previous news report.
The taikonauts will perform work outside the capsule such as
installing equipment and "tightening screws," according to previous
stories.
China launched its first unmanned experimental spacecraft in
November 1999 and the Shenzhou V spacecraft, with Yang aboard, was
launched on October 15, 2003, when China became the third country
after the United States and Russia to send a man into space.
The Shenzhou VI spacecraft completed a five-day
flight with two taikonauts on board from October 12, 2005, the
first time China put two taikonauts into space.
China's first moon probe, Chang'e 1, blasted off on a Long March 3A
carrier rocket on October 24 last year in Sichuan Province, marking
the first step of the nation's decade-long moon plan, which will
lead to a moon landing and launch of a moon rover about 2012.
In the third phase, scheduled for 2017, another rover will land
on the moon and return to earth with lunar soil and stone samples
for scientific research.
(Shanghai Daily January 2, 2008)