China has launched a spacecraft carrying animals into orbit. The move could pave the way to the launch of Chinese astronauts in the next few years.
Secrecy surrounds the spacecraft, dubbed Shenzhou II. It houses unidentified animals and colonies of microbes, and is said by Chinese officials to be due to return to Earth 鈥渋n a few days鈥�.
Mike Cruise, of Birmingham University and UK science delegate to the European Space Agency, says: 鈥淚t鈥檚 not a big surprise. They鈥檝e been continuously developing launch vehicles for a period of 20 years or so, and have a strong ambition to get a proper space programme going.鈥�
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He sees it as natural that the mission should be fairly secretive. 鈥淎nybody would want to be guarded about something like this. They don鈥檛 want to be embarrassed by failure.鈥�
But Cruise told 快猫短视频 that, if the secrecy continued after two or three launches, it might be concluded that China had a blanket policy of not revealing details about their space programme.
Life support
Chinese officials herald the launch of Shenzhou II as a prelude to crewed launches, which the nation hopes to have underway by 2005. Such a feat would make China only the third country to put a human into space, following the former Soviet Union and the USA.
Experts say the design of the spacecraft is similar to the Russian Soyuz spacecraft used to ferry cosmonauts to the Mir space station. Wednesday鈥檚 launch took place at 0100 Beijing time from the Jiuquan Satellite Launching Centre in north-west China.
The presence of animals should give scientists the chance to test the spacecraft鈥檚 life support systems. The Soviet Union first launched an animal into space in 1957, but the hapless dog Laika died.
Despite China鈥檚 late start in the space race, Cruise thinks an ambitious human space programme could yield social benefits by inspiring young people to follow technological careers and boosting the Chinese satellite and communications industry.