China's third manned space mission blasted off from a remote desert site on Thursday on a trip expected to include the technologically ambitious nation's first space walk. The Shenzhou VII shot up into a chilly, inky black sky at the Jiuquan launch centre in the northwestern province of Gansu at exactly 9:10 p.m. (1310 GMT) carrying three astronauts in a take-off broadcast live on state television. It entered earth orbit about 20 minutes later, though will not reach its final orbit for a few more hours. “The solar panel has unfolded and we feel well,” one of the astronauts said, according to the official Xinhua news agency. President Hu Jintao, speaking to the control room, called the launch “another great feat in the Chinese people's scaling of the peak of world science and technology”. “The successful launch of the Shenzhou VII spacecraft signifies an initial victory for this manned spaceflight mission,” he added in remarks also carried on television. It is China's third manned space venture since October 2003, when it joined Russia and the United States as the only countries to have sent astronauts into space. The space walk is expected on Saturday. China sent two astronauts on a five-day flight on its Shenzhou VI craft in October 2005. “The people of China will leave their first footprint in space -- this footprint which cannot be seen will certainly be an advance that is hard to forget and will forever be remembered by the Chinese nation,” Xinhua said. Officials and state media have hailed the prospective space feats as national triumphs, crowning the successes of the Beijing Olympics and dramatising the country's broader ambitions. “This will be a very outward show of Chinese power,” said Kevin Pollpeter, an expert on China's space programme at the Defense Group Inc in Washington. “The eventual goal is to build a space station. For them, that's become one of the trappings of being a great power.” A mission engineer, Zhou Jianping, said the timing of the space walk could be changed, depending on how long it took the astronauts to adjust, Xinhua said. The ability to do what is also called “extra-vehicular activity” is essential for China's long-term goals of assembling an orbiting station in the next decade and possibly making a visit to the moon. “I think it represents China's development,” said Lei Xuemin, watching the launch in a Beijing restaurant. “I personally feel that China is now very strong, and I feel very proud.” China's space programme has come a long way since late leader Mao Zedong, founder of Communist China in 1949, lamented that the country could not even launch a potato into space. But its rapidly advancing programme has raised disquiet in Western capitals and in Tokyo that China has military ambitions in space, especially after a Chinese anti-satellite missile test last year. Beijing rejects the charges. “China always advocates the peaceful use of outer space,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said.
