Shenzhou 5: China's First Crewed Spaceflight

From the "863 Programme" to "Project 921"

According to a 2003 Congressional Research Service report, an earlier Chinese attempt at human spaceflight was abandoned under economic pressure. The "863 Programme" submitted to the Party Central Committee by scientists including Wang Daheng in March 1986 included a crewed-spaceflight field. On 21 September 1992 the crewed space programme was formally approved under the code name "921", with its launch site at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, from which China's first satellite, Dongfanghong-1, had been launched in 1970; Chinese officials repeatedly described a "three-step" plan: put humans into Earth orbit, dock spacecraft to form a small laboratory, and ultimately build a large space station. The crewed launch site at Jiuquan was founded on 3 July 1994. The programme comprised seven systems: astronauts, space applications, spacecraft, launch vehicle, launch site, tracking and communications, and landing site.

According to the CRS report, Russia signed a space cooperation agreement with China in 1994, and a 1996 "joint understanding" provided for training two Chinese specialists at Star City near Moscow, which took place in 1997. In January 1998 Yang Liwei and 13 other air force pilots were selected from 886 initial candidates as China's first astronauts. Between 20 November 1999 and 30 December 2002 four uncrewed spacecraft, Shenzhou 1 to 4, were launched, the third and fourth carrying dummy astronauts. Shenzhou consists of a service module, a descent module and an orbital module, which can keep operating in orbit after the descent module returns.

The Flight

According to Xinhua's full record, at 05:20 on 15 October 2003 Hu Jintao met the first-flight team (Yang Liwei, Zhai Zhigang and Nie Haisheng) at the astronauts' quarters at the Jiuquan launch site. At 08:50 Hu and others watched from the launch command building, while Wu Bangguo, Wen Jiabao and others followed the launch at the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center. At 09:00 a Long March 2F rocket lifted off; about ten minutes later the spacecraft reached orbit and Yang reported, "I feel good." At 09:42 programme commander-in-chief Li Jinai declared the launch a success.

In flight Yang ate and slept for about three hours; the spacecraft changed orbit at 15:54. At 17:26 Defence Minister Cao Gangchuan spoke with him; around 18:40, on the seventh orbit, he displayed the Chinese flag and the UN flag and greeted the peoples of the world; at 19:58 he spoke with his wife and son. At 05:35 on the 16th the Beijing control centre sent the return command, and at 06:23 the descent module landed at the main landing site in Siziwang Banner, Inner Mongolia, 4.8 km from the planned point; Yang left the capsule unaided. The flight lasted 21 hours 23 minutes and completed 14 orbits. The orbital module stayed in orbit.

Yang Liwei's Account

In his memoir "Tiandi Jiuchong" and other recollections, Yang later revealed that when the rocket reached 30–40 km altitude a violent low-frequency resonance shook the rocket and spacecraft for about 26 seconds, during which he "felt he was going to die" and "my internal organs seemed about to shatter". Once in orbit he wrote in his log: "For the peace and progress of mankind, the Chinese have come to space." Looking down at the Earth, he recalled, "I felt very small," adding that "without the combined strength of the country and the nation, I could not have flown so high."

Reactions

After the launch Hu Jintao spoke at the Beijing control centre, calling the programme "a major strategic decision made by the third-generation central leadership with Comrade Jiang Zemin at its core". At 07:29 on the 16th Jiang Zemin, chairman of the Central Military Commission, telephoned Li Jinai to congratulate him, calling the flight "another great achievement of reform and opening and socialist modernisation". That year the Party Central Committee, State Council and Central Military Commission conferred on Yang the title "Space Hero" and the Aerospace Meritorious Medal.

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe called it "an important achievement in human exploration"; on 19 October President George W. Bush wrote to Hu calling the mission "an historic triumph for the Chinese people" and welcoming China as the third country to launch an astronaut. The Congressional Research Service set out differing views: some welcomed a new explorer, some saw a technological advance that could pose a threat, and some found it unremarkable, coming 42 years after the Soviet Union and the United States; it cited a 2003 Defense Department assessment that the crewed programme "almost certainly" would contribute to improved Chinese military space systems in 2010–2020, and noted that the United States had declined to bring China into the International Space Station. On the spacecraft's origins, the report recorded that Shenzhou was patterned after Russia's Soyuz and that a Russian space agency official called the design "100% Russian", while Chinese officials insisted it was built entirely in China and some Western experts pointed to differences. According to Xinhua, Xie Mingbao, director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office, said the five Shenzhou spacecraft launched so far had cost 18 billion yuan.

Afterwards

In October 2005 Shenzhou 6 carried Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng on a five-day flight, landing on 17 October. In 2024 Yang Liwei received the Qian Xuesen Supreme Achievement Award.