Very early today, at around 7:30 in the morning Beijing time, China launched its Shenzhou 11 mission to its new Tiangong 2 space station. Tiangong 2, which was launch September 15th of 2016, can support the manned mission for around 30 days, or so reports say.
Shenzhou is a spacecaft very similar to the Soviet – Russian Soyuz, consisting of an equipment / propulsion module, a descent module, and an orbital module. Differences include the Shenzhou spacecraft being larger, overall, than Soyuz and the orbital module being capable of autonomous flight, thus making it useful post-mission as a specialized satellite in its own right.
I don’t have too much special to say here, currently: Information on the Chinese manned space program is oddly scarce. In the upcoming weeks I will try to cover as much as I can of their program, within reason: there are a few recent developments which I have been meaning to cover.
I guess the best thing here would be to share the launch highlights. One thing I do want to note is the absolutely amazing staging sequence that the Long March 2F has, with the boosters and the core stage separating at almost the same time. Quite the beautiful effect.
Enjoy!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhou_11
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong-2