China marks decade of human spaceflight with 3-person mission to prototype space station

BEIJING Chinas astronauts have braved the tension of docking with a space station and performed delicate tasks outside their orbiting capsule, but now face a more down-to-earth job that is perhaps equally challenging: Talking to young people about science.

Three Chinese astronauts will take flight this week, on Tuesday if weather permits, aboard a Shenzhou spacecraft to the dock with Chinas Tiangong 1 space lab. On the heels of Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfields wildly popular YouTube videos from the International Space Station, the Chinese crew plans to deliver a series of talks to students from aboard the Tiangong.

The lectures come as Chinas human space program enters its second decade, after going from a simple manned flight to space lab link-ups in a series of methodically timed steps in just 10 years. Meanwhile, its American rival appears adrift in search of new missions, lacking in political backing and uninterested in collaborating with China.

China is in space for the long haul. The U.S. ignoring that and refusing to work with China will neither stop them nor slow them down, said Joan Johnson-Freese, an expert on the Chinese space program at the U.S. Naval War College.

The Shenzhou 10 spacecraft its name means sacred vessel is to be launched aboard a Long March 2F rocket, a safer and more reliable version of that used in previous missions. It will transport the crew for a 12-day stay aboard the Tiangong 1, which functions as an experimental prototype for a much larger Chinese space station to be launched in 2020.

The space classrooms mark the boldest step so far to bring the military-backed program into the lives of ordinary Chinese and follows in the footsteps of NASA, which used student outreach to inspire interest in space exploration and sustain support for its budgets. Thus far, Chinese astronauts have been paraded before the public at rallies and other events, but theyve had almost no genuine interaction with ordinary Chinese.

The three-member team, announced on state media Monday and including one woman, will also conduct tests on the stations docking and life support systems, probing them for possible problems to be corrected in the design for the larger space station.

Although two Chinese spacecraft, one of them crewed, have already docked with the Tiangong, or heavenly palace, since it was launched in September 2011, Chinas space program says its space station remains in mint condition.

China launched its first crewed mission, the Shenzhou 5, in October 2003, becoming the third nation after Russia and the U.S. to achieve that feat. The upcoming mission would be Chinas fifth crewed space flight.

Starting in 1992, China has trained a corps of 21 astronauts, including a younger cadre of seven men and women recruited over the past three years. Shenzhou 10s sole female member is Wang Yaping, a 35-year-old air force pilot whose earlier duties included seeding clouds in an attempt to clear the skies for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games.

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China marks decade of human spaceflight with 3-person mission to prototype space station