Shenzhou 1 () launched on 19 November 1999, was the first uncrewed launch of the

Shenzhou spacecraft Shenzhou (, ; see ) is a spacecraft developed and operated by China to support its crewed spaceflight program, China Manned Space Program. Its design resembles the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, but it is larger in size. The first launch was on 19 ...

. The spacecraft used was not equipped with a life support system or an emergency escape system. After orbiting the Earth 14 times, the command for retrofire was sent by the '' Yuan Wang 3'' tracking ship off the coast of

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

at 18:49 UTC. After a successful reentry it landed about east of its launch pad and north-west of

Wuhai Wuhai (; mn, ''Üqai qota'', Mongolian cyrillic.Үхай хот) is a prefecture-level city and regional center in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, and is by area the smallest prefecture-level division of the region. It is located ...

Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...

. The first Shenzhou spacecraft was different from those later used. Instead of featuring unfolding

solar panels A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a phot ...

, ''Shenzhou 1'' was equipped with fixed

solar cell A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical and chemical phenomenon.

s. During this first flight there were also no orbit changes. According to

Qi Faren Qi Faren (; born 1933) is a Chinese aerospace engineer and the chief designer for Chinese spacecraft since the launch of the prototype Shenzhou manned spacecraft in 1999. Qi was born in 1933 in Wafangdian, Liaoning, China, and graduated from t ...

, the chief designer of the spacecraft, only 8 of the 13 sub-systems on board the spacecraft were operational. Shenzhou 1 was designed primarily to test the

Long March 2F The Long March 2F ( ''Changzheng 2F''), also known as the CZ-2F, LM-2F and Shenjian (, "Divine Arrow"), is a Chinese orbital carrier rocket, part of the Long March 2 rocket family. Designed to launch crewed Shenzhou spacecraft, the Long March ...

rocket. The only systems and capabilities tested on the spacecraft were the separation of the modules,

attitude control Attitude control is the process of controlling the orientation of an aerospace vehicle with respect to an inertial frame of reference or another entity such as the celestial sphere, certain fields, and nearby objects, etc. Controlling vehicle ...

lifting body A lifting body is a fixed-wing aircraft or spacecraft configuration in which the body itself produces lift. In contrast to a flying wing, which is a wing with minimal or no conventional fuselage, a lifting body can be thought of as a fuselage wi ...

reentry Atmospheric entry is the movement of an object from outer space into and through the gases of an atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite. There are two main types of atmospheric entry: ''uncontrolled entry'', such as the entr ...

, the

heat shield In thermodynamics, heat is defined as the form of energy crossing the boundary of a thermodynamic system by virtue of a temperature difference across the boundary. A thermodynamic system does not ''contain'' heat. Nevertheless, the term is al ...

, and ground recovery. The spacecraft is thought to have carried of seeds to investigate the effects on them of the space environment. It is also thought that the front of the

Orbital module The orbital module is a compartment of some space capsules used only in orbit. It is separated from the crewed reentry capsule before reentry. The orbital module provides 'habitat' space to use in orbit, while the reentry capsule tends to be foc ...

was equipped with a dummy

ELINT Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ( ...

package, with

Shenzhou 2 Shenzhou 2 () launched on January 9, 2001, was the second unmanned launch of the Shenzhou spacecraft. Inside the reentry capsule were a monkey, a dog and a rabbit in a test of the spaceship's life support systems. The reentry module separated ...

onwards equipped with fully functional models. It was announced in June 1999 that the flight would take place in October of that year. At about the same time images were released on a Chinese military internet forum of the

launcher and the

Vehicle Assembly Building The Vehicle Assembly Building (originally the Vertical Assembly Building), or VAB, is a large building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), designed to assemble large pre-manufactured space vehicle components, such as the massive Saturn V and th ...

that would be used. After a reported propellant explosion at the

Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (JSLC; also known as Shuangchengzi Missile Test Center; Launch Complex B2; formally Northwest Comprehensive Missile Testing Facility (); Base 20; 63600 Unit) is a Chinese space vehicle launch facility (spac ...

(though the explosion was denied by Chinese officials) the launch was pushed back.

Mission parameters

* NSSDC ID: 1999-061A * Mass: 7600 kg * Perigee: 195 km * Apogee: 315 km * Inclination: 42.6° * Period: 89.6 minutes

References

* * * * * {{Orbital launches in 1999 Shenzhou 01 Spacecraft launched in 1999 1999 in China

Mission parameters

See also

References