China launches spacecraft (Shenzhou-8) for docking exercise

• China launched its Shenzhou-8 unmanned spacecraft, which will dock with a laboratory module in outer space and set the stage for the building of the country's first space station.
• The spacecraft would dock with the Tiangong-1 laboratory module, which was launched on September 29, within two days, said Chinese officials.
• The launch of the Tiangong-1 laboratory module and the docking exercise have been seen as key landmarks for China's fast-expanding space programme and crucial steps in China's plans to become only the third nation, after the United States and Russia, to set up a space station by 2020.
• The Chinese spacecraft has unprecedented collaborative space experiments under the framework of a Chinese-German science and technology cooperation.
• German scientists designed bio-incubators for the experiments while the Chinese developed control equipment and apparatus connecting with the spacecraft. Shenzhou-8, with a length of nine metres and a maximum diameter of 2.8 metres, has a liftoff weight of 8.082 tonnes.