Shenzhou 9

Shenzhou 9 (Chinese神舟 九号) was the ninth manned mission to test spacecraft in the Chinese space program. She was the hitherto longest Chinese space flight, as well as a Chinese space station was first put into operation.

Crew

The crew was announced on 14 June 2012:

• Jing Haipeng ( second space flight )
• Liu Wang ( first space flight )
• Liu Yang ( first space flight, it is the first spaceflight of China )

Mission Description

The launch took place on 16 June 2012 at 10:37:24 UTC. Shenzhou 9 took place on June 18, the first Chinese manned spacecraft an automatic docking in space. These led Shenzhou 9 is a based on the Russian APAS system coupling adapter. Docking target was the Chinese space station Tiangong 1, which is in orbit since 29 September 2011. Three hours after docking entered Jing Haipeng, Liu Wang and Liu Yang is the first Chinese taikonauts the space laboratory.

The task of the crew was to take the space laboratory in operation and to explore the conditions necessary for the operation of space stations. In addition, medical experiments for the study of long-term stays of station crews were carried out in space.

On June 24, 2012, the crew went back to the spaceship Shenzhou 9 and coupled by Tiangong 1 from to perform a manual docking. To this end, the spaceship away at 400 m distance and then approached the space station again. In 140 m distance Liu Wang took the hand controller and coupled to 04:48 UTC again.

The crew left the space station on June 27, around 22:00 UTC and closed the hatch at 22:27 UTC. The decoupling took place on June 28th at 01:22 UTC. The brake ignition took place the following day at 01:18 UTC, after the orbital module was dropped. The landing took place on 29 June 2012 at 02:01 UTC in the planned target area.