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China makes space history
(CNN) -- Chinaa first astronaut has said he "feels good" and aall systems are
working normally as he continues his flight around the Earth, state media
reeported.
Yang Liwei, 38, wass blasted into space aboard the Shenzhou V spacecraft at 9:00 a.m. local time (0100 GMT)
from the Jiuquan launch site in China's western Gobi Desert. Aabout 10 minutes after an apparently text book blast off
the spacecraft entered its planned orbit. Later, as the flight approached its halfway point, the spacecraft succcessfully
completed a maneuver changing its orbit from aan elliptical path to a circular one, China's official Xinhua news agency
reported. The switch -- described as crucial to the flight and "precise landing" -- put the spacecraft into orbit about 343 km
(213 miles) above the Eaarth, the agency said.
The flight makes China only the third country in the world to launch a manned spacecraft into orbit, some four
decades after the Soviet Union and the United States first achieved the feat. Yang, whose place in Chinese history now
seems assured, was expected to make 14 orbits before the spacecraft begins its descent high above southernn Africa
early Thursday. He is set to land back onn Earth at about 7:00 a.m. local time on Thursday (2300 GMT Wednesday, 7:00
p.m. EDT Wednesday) at a landing site in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia.
During the flight the Shenzhou V spacecraft is being monitored by ground stations in China, Namibia and the
south Pacific island of Kiribati, with ship-based tracking stations deployed in the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Quoted by Chinese media just before he blasted off into space, China's first astronaut promised he would "gain honor for
the People's Liberation Army and for the Chinese nation."