China’s fast developing space programme is set to take another significant step forward next month with the launch of a craft that will undertake the country’s first space docking with a space lab module that was launched in September. Shenzhou-8 and its carrier rocket were reportedly transferred Wednesday morning on a railway to the launch pad. ‘Technicians completed testing on the assembling of Shenzhou-8 and the rocket after they were delivered to the launch centre at the end of August, said Lu Jinrong, the launch centre’s chief engineer,’ the official Xinhua News Agency reported. ‘In the next few days, the launch centre will continue testing the spacecraft and the rocket, and inject propellant before the final launch in early November, Lu said.’ How significant is this? ‘The Shenzhou 8 unmanned mission to dock with Tiangong-1 is part of step two of their long ago announced plans for human spaceflight,’ Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor ...
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