BEIJING, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese aerospace
experts saved the country's first ever manned space mission as the spaceship was
faced with lethal impact while flying through the communications blackout area
before landing.
The Xi'an Satellite Monitor and Control Center released recently for the first time the danger met by the
spacecraft, Shenzhou V, and China's first astronaut Yang Liwei.
Dong Deyi, head of the Xi'an center, said in an
interview with Xinhua that Yang lost every means to contact with the ground
command and control headquarters as soon as entering in the aerosphere, which
fell in the worst case scenario prepared by the space mission team.
Every spacecraft would be covered by plasma as
running through the aerosphere, according to experts. The plasma obstructs
communications between spacecraft and command and control center on the ground.
"Even radar could not capture any signal from the
returning module," Dong said.
After the Shenzhou V went out of the blackout area,
Dong said, the echo signals from the spaceship were still volatile which
sufficiently threaten a safe landing of astronaut Yang.
The Xi'an center, which is responsible for every
landing of the Shenzhou spaceships since 1999, ordered implementation of the
optical guiding and tracking system instead of communication-guided landing
control, Dong said.
The aerospace technologists used cinetheodolites on
the ground to measure spacecraft position and record the movement of the
Shenzhou V. Precise positioning of the spacecraft enabled officers to properly
control the slow-down parachute which was vital to a soft landing.
However, the landing spot was nine kilometers east of
the previously planned location, Dong said, citing that the rescue team reached
astronaut Yang 12 minutes after his successful landing.
China began its clandestine manned space program in
1992, which was coded as the 921 Project. Since then, China has spent at least
20 billion yuan (2.64 billion U.S. dollars) in the project and sent three
astronauts into orbit.
