Shenzhou 8

Shenzhou 8 was the eighth mission of Shenzhou spacecraft as part of the Chinese space program. After seven Vormissionen Shenzhou 8 was the first Chinese spacecraft, which carried out a docking maneuver. In the unmanned Shenzhou mission set 8 the series production of the Shenzhou spacecraft test.

Mission History

The launch took place on 31 October 2011 at 21:58 UTC (November 1, 2011 5:58 CNST ). In addition to testing the flight characteristics of the spacecraft itself (November 4, 1:36 CNST ) was established on November 3 at 17:36 UTC for the first time by a Chinese spacecraft performed a docking in orbit coupling destination was also unmanned Chinese space laboratory Tiangong 1, at 29. September 2011 launched into space at 13:16 UTC clock. The coupling adapter required for APAS - system compatible, which was also used by the space shuttle when docking with the ISS.

After nearly eleven days docked on November 14 from Shenzhou 8 of Tiangong 1 and moved away to 140 m. Then the spaceship again approached the space station. This time were conducted in daylight approach and coupling. On November 16, at 10:30 UTC Shenzhou 8 docked from final and landed the next day in China.

Science

In addition to the tests of coupling and flight characteristics of scientific experiments were planned during the mission. For the first time allowed the Chinese Space Agency China Manned Space Engineering Office ( CMSEO ) conduct foreign scientists, research aboard a Chinese spacecraft. The German participation was coordinated at the DLR.

The core of the biological experiments was an incubator called SIM box, which had been designed and manufactured by EADS Astrium. This incubator has a volume of 34 liters and can accommodate 40 experiment units of which are exposed to some of the weightlessness, learn other through a centrifuge gravity conditions, making the effects of gravity can be studied on the samples. The samples aboard Shenzhou 8 were from plants, nematodes, bacteria and human cancer cells.

Six experiments were from the German universities of Erlangen, Hohenheim, Magdeburg, Tübingen and Hamburg, Freiburg and the Charité Berlin. Two additional experiments were conducted in German - Chinese cooperation between the universities of Erlangen and Wuhan and the University of Hamburg and the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.