AlHijjah 18, 1432, Nov 14, 2011, SPA -- Eleven days after the first Chinese space rendezvous, unmanned spacecraft Shenzhou-8 redocked with a module of the country's planned space lab, Tiangong-1. The docking was seen as an important step in China's development of its own space station, which is to be complete by 2020. Since November 3, both spacecraft - attached as small test space stations - circled 343 kilometres above the earth. Shenzhou-8 is expected to land in inner Mongolia at 8 pm localtime (1200 GMT) Thursday. Next year, two additional flights are planned. Astronauts are slated to live in the space lab during these flights. "These flights are becoming easier because the technology is proven," Australian space expert Morris Jones told dpa. But new challenges remain. "They need to keep the astronauts alive for long periods of time in space," Morris said. Future docking manoeuvres will likely be controlled manually and not from ground control, said space expert Dean Cheng of the HeritageFoundation in Washington. Unlike the first Chinese space rendezvous, this second, 30-minute encounter, was not broadcast live on Chinese television. A recording was aired 30 minutes later. Shenzhou-8 is carrying a German experimental lab which after Thursday's landing will be demounted and brought to Beijing by helicopter.
