China held Friday a rally to celebrate the success of the country's first mission of space docking between the target orbiter Tiangong-1 and the Shenzhou 8 spacecraft.

President Hu Jintao, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, and members of the Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau attended the meeting.

China's unmanned spacecraft Shenzhou 8 landed in north China on the evening of Nov. 17, after completing the country's first-ever space docking mission with target orbiter Tiangong-1.

The re-entry module of the spacecraft parachuted down at a landing site in Siziwang Banner (county) in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region at around 7:30 p.m., marking the end of the 49-day space docking mission.

Launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Nov. 1, the Shenzhou-8 first rendezvoused and docked with the space lab module Tiangong-1 two days later.

The two joint vessels orbited Earth for 12 days and conducted another docking after a brief disengagement on Nov. 14.

The Tiangong-1, which blasted off from the Jiuquan launch center on Sept. 29, will remain in orbit to await future docking attempts with the Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10 spacecraft in 2012.

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)