Crossing the final frontier

Beijing

China will try to send an astronaut into space later this year, state media said. China’s fourth test of an unmanned space capsule ended in success this week, and officials announced that the next flight would be manned. The capsule, Shenzhou IV, blasted off from a base in the Gobi desert, orbited the Earth 108 times, and performed hundreds of maneuvers before returning safely to Earth. So far only Russia and the United States are able to send astronauts into space without help from any other country. European astronauts usually work with each other and with the Russian and American programs.

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