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Chinese Crew Completes Manual Docking With Orbiting Module

Posted by timothy on from the one-of-the-best-things-to-do-in-space dept.

A few days back, the crew of the Shenzhou 9 were along for the ride as their craft docked to — or rather, was docked to — an orbiting module. On Sunday, the docking procedure was repeated, but under the direction of the Chinese astronauts themselves rather than controllers on the ground.

2 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Congradulations China by M1FCJ · · Score: 5, Informative

    They tried to join ISS, A certain North American country said "never, never, never!", and it wasn't the Canadians nor Mexico.

  2. Re:Is there some special about a manual docking? by M1FCJ · · Score: 5, Informative

    Russian automated docking systems used to fail once in a while. The famous Mir-Progress collusion was an attempt on doing a manual docking (to save money by not carrying the automated system which would burn away once the Progress would deorbit) with an unmanned spacecraft (Progress) with the guidance but no control from the manned craft (Mir) which went horribly wrong.