China's two
astronauts orbiting Earth aboard their Shenzhou 6 spacecraft received a call
Saturday from President Hu Jintao, who praised their efforts and wished them a "triumphant
return," according to state media reports.
"The
motherland and people are proud of you," Hu said in the long distance phone
call according to China's Xinhua News Agency. "I hope you will
successfully complete your task by carrying out the mission calmly and carefully
and have a triumphant return."
Shenzhou
6 astronauts Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng launched
into orbit on Oct. 12 Beijing Time (late Oct. 11 EDT) on China's second manned spaceflight and its first to carry two space
flyers on a multi-day trip. They are now in their fourth day of their mission
and have traveled more than 1.3 million miles (2 million kilometers), according
to state media reports.
"The
spacecraft is working well and we are feeling good," Nie told Hu, Xinhua
reported. "You can rest assured, and all the people of the motherland can rest
assured."
Hu spoke to
the Shenzhou 6 crew from Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center, and
later address mission scientists and flight controllers there, encouraging them
to return Fei and Nie safely back to Earth, Xinhua said.
Fei and Nie
are slated to spend up to five days, though there has been no official word
from China's government on when they will land. Xinhua has reported that
the astronauts carried enough supplies into space with them to last
seven days if needed.
China
eyes island spaceport
Even before
the two astronauts land, Xinhua reported that Chinese space officials
may choose the southern province of its tropical island Hainan as a new
spaceport to launch its next generation rockets.
The
location, however, comes as no surprise to China space experts, who said
discussions of a Hainan
space launch site have been going for at least five years.
"The island's
huge, and the [People's Liberation Army] owns several bases on Hainan," China
space specialist Dean Cheng told SPACE.com in an earlier interview. "It
gives them immediate access to the land."
Located in
the South China Sea, Hainan is closer to the equator and could provide some
advantages over China's three other launch sites - including the
northwestern-located Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center used to loft Shenzhou 6 -
including heavier payloads and launching over water, China space experts said.
Equatorial or near-equatorial launch sites are also used by Sea Launch and
Europe's Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana.
Liu Zhusheng,
chief designer of China's carrier rocket system, told Xinhua that the
new booster will be designed to loft payloads of between 1.2 and 25 tons into
low Earth orbit, and 1.8 to 14 tons into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. A
heavy-lift rocket woul
China's
current Long March rocket family - Shenzou 6 rode a Long March 2F into orbit -
boasts four series and 12 separate models with payload capacities of up to 12
tons for low Earth orbit space shots and about 5.2 tons into geosynchronous
transfer orbits, according to state media reports.
China's
next generation rocket family, the Long March 5, is reportedly undergoing
ground tests, said Joan Johnson-Freese, an expert on China's space efforts chair
of National Security Studies at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode
Island, in an earlier interview.
Johnson-Freese
said China will likely have to build a new launch facility to suit the new
rocket.
China has
announced ambitions to build a manned
space station for science research, as well as an unmanned Moon probe to
launch by 2010.
The country
is the third nation to independently build and launch manned spacecraft into
orbit. Shenzhou 5, China's first piloted spaceflight, launched astronaut Yang
Liwei on a 14-orbit, 21 ½ hour mission on Oct. 15, 2003.
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