Lift-off for China as astronauts prepare for historic spacewalk

SHENZHOU VII yesterday shot up into the chilly, inky black sky from a remote desert site in the north-west Chinese province of Gansu.

Blasting off at exactly 1:10pm, Shenzhou – meaning "sacred vessel" – carried three astronauts in a take-off broadcast live on television, and it entered Earth orbit about 20 minutes later.

China is now on the way to achieving its most challenging space mission since first sending a person into orbit in 2003 – a spacewalk.

The trip is China's third manned space venture since it joined Russia and the United States as the only countries to have carried astronauts into space.

The spacewalk by one of the crewmen is expected to take place either today or tomorrow – depending on how well the astronauts adapt to weightlessness and other physical demands of their environment, according to the China Manned Space Engineering Office.

Underscoring the mission's heavy political overtones, Hu Jintao, the Chinese president and Communist Party head, was shown live on television hailing the astronauts at the launch site.

He told them: "You will definitely accomplish this glorious and sacred mission.

"The motherland and the people are looking forward to your triumphant return."

The mission is expected to last three to four days and is devoted almost entirely to the execution of the spacewalk, known formally as an extra-vehicular activity.

The mission is also being used as a trial run for China to master the technology for docking two orbiters to create the nation's first space station in the next few years.

The two astronauts who don spacesuits for the Shengzhou VII spacewalk will be supported by Russian experts throughout the mission.

However, only one will actually leave the orbiter module to retrieve scientific experiments placed outside. One of the astronauts will wear a Chinese-made Feitian suit, and the other a Russian-made suit.

The astronauts will return to Earth soon after the spacewalk.

Zhai Zhigang, an unsuccessful candidate for the previous two manned missions, has been touted as the leading astronaut to carry out the walk, expected to last about 40 minutes.

Zhai and his fellow astronauts, Jing Haipeng and Liu Boming, are all 42-year-old fighter pilots.

They will have a choice of nearly 80 foods, including spicy "kung-pao" chicken, said nutritionist Chen Bin. They will also take traditional Chinese medicine made of more than ten herbs to treat space motion sickness.

Zhai said a decade of training together ensured effective, smooth co-operation between the three.

He added: "The Shenzhou VII mission marks a historic breakthrough in China's manned space programme. It is a great honour for all three of us to fly the mission, and we are fully prepared for the challenge."

The Shenzhou programme is secretively run through military and government agencies and its budget is unclear.

However, in 2003, officials said it had cost 18 billion yuan (£2.6 billion) up to then.

Next stop could be Moon as rising giant overtakes neighbour
CHINA'S space programme has come a long way since Mao Zedong, founder of Communist China in 1949, lamented that the country could not even launch a potato into space.

But its rapidly advancing programme has raised disquiet in western capitals that China has military ambitions in space, especially after a Chinese anti-satellite missile test last year.

A foreign ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, has rejected the charges, saying: "China always advocates the peaceful use of outer space.

"The ultimate goal of China's manned space projects is to explore and peacefully use outer space, boost national economic development and people's wellbeing."

The ability to perform "extra-vehicular activity" – spacewalks – is essential for China's long-term goals of assembling an orbiting station in the next decade and possibly making a visit to the Moon.

Japan has been looking on with envy as China's space programme outpaces its own.

Hampered partly by a self-imposed ban on military use of space, Japan has never carried out a manned mission.

However, a ban on space development linked to defence was lifted in May.