China's Shenzhou-10 spacecraft returns to Earth

China Space_Kand.jpg

Beijing: China completed its longest manned space mission on Wednesday as its Shenzhou-10 spacecraft and three crew members safely returned to Earth, in a major step for Beijing's goal of building a permanent space station by 2020.
The return capsule touched down at 8:07 am (0007 GMT), live state TV footage showed, kicking up a cloud of dust on the grasslands of north China's Inner Mongolia region. Technicians quickly gathered to open the craft's hatch and crawled inside to check the crew's safety. Applause erupted at mission control when word came they were in good condition.
A smiling commander Nie Haisheng was the first to emerge from the capsule at 9:31 am. He was followed by female astronaut Wang Yaping, who also smiled and waved, and Zhang Xiaoguang."At this moment what I most want to say is that space is our dream and our motherland is forever our home," Nie said.
"I wish our motherland to thrive even more and our people to become happier and happier. I thank the entire nation for their concern and support for us." The 15-day Shenzhou-10 ("Divine Vessel") mission is seen as another step in Beijing's ambitious objective of building a space station.
Highlights of the mission included dockings with China's orbiting space module Tiangong-1 in tests intended to prepare for the building of the space station. Wang delivered a video class to children across the country from space last week, showing how a variety of objects -- from a bubble of water to a spinning toy -- behave in zero gravity. The crew also conducted medical experiments during the mission.
China first sent a human into space only in 2003 and its capabilities still lag behind the US and Russia. But its programme is highly ambitious and includes plans to land a man on the moon.Beijing sees its multi-billion-dollar space programme as a symbol of its rising global stature, growing technical expertise, and the Communist Party's success in turning around the fortunes of the once poverty-stricken nation.
Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, in a congratulatory message delivered at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center and shown on state TV, cited "the staunch leadership of the party central committee with comrade Xi Jinping as general secretary" as a factor in the mission's success.
"Our motherland and people will forever engrave in our memory your distinguished success," he added, referring to all involved in the mission. Users of Weibo, China's Twitter-like microblogs, also offered congratulations.
"Heroes have returned victoriously," read one posted under the username Christina from Kaifeng Radio, a station in Kaifeng in the central province of Henan. The space programme has been heavily promoted on Chinese media.
On Monday, Xi, who besides heading the party is also China's president, spoke to the crew via video call. "The space dream is part of the dream to make China stronger," Xi told them, the state Xinhua news agency reported, referencing his signature "Chinese dream" concept.
"With the development of space programmes, the Chinese people will take bigger strides to explore further into space," he said from the control centre.Xi had travelled to the Jiuquan space centre in the Gobi desert to witness the blast-off on June 11.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/238807" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-60910c42cbfc77ec63f0df804111b2e5" value="form-60910c42cbfc77ec63f0df804111b2e5" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="84811281" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.