Shenzhou 9

Shenzhou 9 is a planned manned flight of China’s Shenzhou program that is scheduled for launch in June 2012. Shenzhou 9 will be the second spacecraft to dock with the Tiangong-1 space station, and the first manned docking. The aim of the mission will be to perform a docking with the Tiangong 1 (an unmanned space laboratory module). This mission will be followed by the manned Shenzhou 10 which is planned to be launched in 2012 as well.

Do You Know?

China had accomplished its first space docking mission in 2011 when two Chinese spacecraft silently coupled in space more than 343 km above the Earth’s surface as part of the country’s maiden attempt to build a space station by 2020. The unmanned spacecraft Shenzhou-8 docked with space lab module Tiangong-1 in October 2011. This successful docking procedure made China third country in the world, after the United States and Russia, to master the technique, moving the country one step closer to establishing its own space station.