Constitutes
Manned Spaceship System

The Manned Spacecraft System is mainly responsible for the development of Shenzhou manned spaceships. The structural, thermal control and electrical models of the spacecraft have been developed for ground tests, and one trial spacecraft and six flight models for flight tasks have also been developed successively. Shenzhou spaceships are the first kind of manned spaceflight vehicles independently developed by China, which are featured with the characteristics of a large space in each module, with multiple purposes, and excellent overall performance. As for Shenzhou manned spaceships, the scheme of a manned spacecraft consisting of three modules (namely, propelling module, re-entry module, and orbital module) and two pairs of solar array is adopted, in which the lifting force is used to control the re-entry and a dome parachute is used to recover the manned spacecraft. With a total length of about 7.4-9.2m, a total weight of about 8 tons and a maximum diameter of about 2.8m, Shenzhou manned spaceships can accommodate 3 occupants and fly independently for 7 days. After the completion of a manned spaceflight, the orbital module will remain in the orbit for about half a year so as to carry out earth observations from space and various scientific and technical experiments. In order to carry out docking with other spacecrafts, future space laboratories and space stations, a rendezvous and docking mechanism can be mounted to the forefront end of a Shenzhou manned spaceship if necessary for fulfilling flight tasks.