China's 'home-grown' spaceship is mainly Russian

By Richard Ingham

PARIS (AFP): Western experts are unimpressed by China's claims to have developed by itself the unmanned spaceship that took its maiden flight last weekend, saying the craft was born from a three-decade-old design bought from impoverished Russia.

Beijing trumpeted the 21-hour unmanned flight made by the Shenzhou ("Divine Vessel") spacecraft, aimed at making China the third country after the former Soviet Union and the United States to put a man in orbit.

The vehicle was "completely indigenous" and the mission "another milestone in China's astronautical history," the state- controlled media declared.

But analysts appraising official pictures of the mission say the ship seemed little more than a slightly modified version of the old Soviet workhorse of space, the Soyuz.

American experts in particular are convinced that China, seeking a technological short cut, simply handed over a fistful of dollars to Moscow, whose experience in manned missions stretches back to 1961.

"It is likely that the Russians provided complete Soyuz capsules, with Russian parachute, reaction control and soft landing systems," writes Mark Wade on the specialist website Encyclopedia Astronautica.

"These were then outfitted with Chinese avionics and instruments. The landing systems are among the most difficult to develop and the Chinese would have saved much time and money by just adopting the Russian solution."

The Shenzhou is "a Soyuz to a very considerable extent. It's off the shelf, as it were," David Baker, editor of the British specialist publication Jane's Space Directory told AFP.

The capsule itself, as well as the launch escape system -- a rocket that wrenches the capsule free from the launcher and blasts it to safety if danger threatens during liftoff -- are "a total Soyuz lookalike," Baker said.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 removed ideological barriers and provided a financial spur for Moscow or its "disenfranchised engineers" to sell coveted technology or skills to a former rival, he said.

The following year, the ground was laid for close cooperation when China's State Council directed that the country place a man in space by October 1999, in time for the 50th anniversary of the Communist revolution.

The U.S. House of Representatives, in the so-called Cox Report earlier this year on the Chinese drive for technological prowess, said China purchased a number of Soyuz capsules during Russian President Boris Yeltsin's visit to Beijing in April 1996.

Philip Clark, a British writer who specializes in Chinese space effort, offers a dissenting view, saying China had only acquired various pieces of equipment -- including a docking system, life-support system and pressure suit -- which it had copied, adapted or improved so that it would not have to "reinvent the wheel."

In addition, two of its astronauts had gone to Russia's Star City for space training, he said.

"But it's garbage to say they have bought whole spacecraft, as is suggested in the Cox Report," Clark said.

He added there appeared to be important differences between Shenzhou and Soyuz.

He estimated Shenzhou could weigh 8.5 tons, making it 1.5 tons heavier than the Soyuz, appeared to be built for up to four, rather than three astronauts, and the pictures showed it to be equipped with two sets of solar panels, rather than Soyuz' one, which could indicate a higher power requirement.

Experts struggled to understand why China should throw its resources into manned missions, a hugely costly business whose scientific or military benefits can be emulated by satellites, retrievable capsules or missiles.

"There are no sensible or logical reasons why China should need human space flight. It already has a very successful and innovative space program," Baker said, pointing to the highly- regarded (and genuinely home-grown) Long March launcher.

Like nuclear weapons, a man in space is a "national virility symbol... that great big icon in the sky that nations find irresistible," he said.

Apart from prestige, the Shenzhou could be used to build a rival to the International Space Station (ISS) planned by western powers, Russia and Japan, some analysts said.

Alternatively, China could use the Shenzhou, if it is successful, as a bargaining counter to join the ISS as "an equal partner," a French space expert said.