Beijing: China will launch its third manned space mission on the heels of next year's Beijing Summer Olympics, newspapers reported today. The Shenzhou 7 launch is on track for October 2008,about one month after the Games end, the China Daily newspaper said on its Web site, citing Pang Zhihao, a researcher with the China Academy of Space Technology.

The trip is to carry three astronauts into space and will feature China s first ever space walk. Also today, official media reported that China s first moon probe, called Chang e 1 after a mythical Chinese moon goddess, had positioned its directional antenna toward earth to allow data to be transmitted home later this month.
State broadcaster CCTV and the official Xinhua News Agency said the probe had orbited the moon 158 times by today at a stable altitude of 200 kilometers above the lunar surface.

Launched in late October, the probe is due to have surveyed the entire surface of the moon at least once by early next year. China has denied any link between the manned mission and its staging of the Olympics, although both events are a source of huge national pride. In 2003,China became only the third country in the world after the United States and Russia to send a human into orbit, following that up with a two-man mission in 2005. Its moon probe was launched about one month after rival Japan blasted its own lunar orbiter into space.

China has announced longer term plans for a permanent presence in space and China Daily said in a separate report that the new generation Long March 5 rocket capable of launching 25 ton components for a space station into near earth orbit could be ready for use by 2013.

Source : PTI