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BEIJING: Chinese taikonaut Zhai Zhigang completed a
space walk Saturday afternoon, marking a remarkable progress in the
country’s ambitious space program, which will eventually lead to
the establishment of a permanent space station.
Donning a $4-million homemade
Feitian space suit, Zhai slipped out of the orbital module of
Shenzhou VII in a head-out-first position at 4:43 p.m. (same time in
Manila).
He waved to the camera mounted on
the service module after pulling himself out of the capsule, video
monitor at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center showed.
“Shenzhou VII is now outside
the spacecraft. I feel well. I am here greeting the Chinese people
and people of the whole world,” the taikonaut reported to the
ground control in Beijing, where Chinese President Hu Jintao watched
the live transmission of the proceedings along with country’s top
space scientists.
Minutes after Zhai,42, was
outside the capsule, teammate Liu Boming also emerged from the
orbital module hatch and handed Zhai a Chinese national flag that
Zhai waved in the outer space. Their third crewmember, Jing
Haipeng, monitored the ship from inside the re-entry module.
Video monitor at the ground
control showed Zhai then slowly leaned towards a test sample of
solid lubricant placed outside the orbital module. He took the
sample and handed it over to Liu.
Solid lubricant is widely used in
spacecraft. The test sample carried by Shenzhou VII includes 11
types of solid lubricants. Chinese scientists hoped to improve the
property and lifetime of the materials by studying the samples.
‘More miraculous
than science fiction’
After the handover, Zhai, who
dreamed of flying into space when he was a teenager, started the
core part of the space adventure, space walk.
Zhai “walked step by step” by
shifting the wire hooks connecting him and the spacecraft.
The historic moment, shown live
by state television, was watched by millions of Chinese.
“Zhai’s space walk is more
miraculous than the science fictions,” Yan Peng, editor-in-chief
of a movie magazine, World Screen.
At the Shenzhou VII media center,
Deng Yibing, chief engineer of the astronaut-training center, turned
emotional after watching the live show.
“The space walk was done
exactly as it was planed,” Deng said. “As a man with China’s
manned space program, watching Zhai Zhigang walking in space is like
a mother watching her tottering child. Even though the steps were
still a little bit staggering, we are so happy and satisfied.”
Sixteen minutes after Zhai’s
space walk, the taikonaut returned to the orbital module in a
foot-in-first position, marking a complete success of China’s
first attempt at space walk.
After leak check by the ground
control, Zhai and Liu turned off the depressurizing valve and
started repressurizing the orbital module. They also adjusted their
extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuits to the intra-capsule
condition.
The Shenzhou VII spacecraft took
off from northwest China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 9:10
p.m. on Thursday and is scheduled to land on the Inner Mongolia
steppe on Sunday.
Performing a successful space
walk is a key step in mastering docking techniques, technology that
is needed for the establishment of a space station.
The success makes China the third
to master the EVA technology following the United States and Russia.
--Xinhua
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