The vehicle completed 14 orbits. It successfully deorbited and reentered Earth’s atmosphere. The Shenzhou reentry module landed in Inner Mongolia, 20 November at 19:41 UTC. The duration of the flight was 21 hours, 11 minutes.
The Shenzhou 1 spacecraft was not fully operational and it differed in several ways from the manned space vehicles that followed. The primary purpose of this flight was a test of the man-rated Long March 2F rocket.
The Shenzhou spacecraft is similar to the Russian Federation’s Soyuz from which it was developed, although it is larger. Shenzhou vehicles are 9.25 meters (30 feet, 4.2 inches) long and 2.80 meters (9 feet, 2.2 inches) in diameter. The spacecraft has a mass of 7,840 kilograms (17,284 pounds). There are three modules: the orbital module, reentry module and service module. The vehicle is designed for three people for flights of up to 20 days duration.
The Changzheng is known as the Long March 2F in the West. It is a two-stage liquid-fueled rocket with external boosters.
The first stage is 23.7 meters (77 feet, 9.6 inches) long with a diameter of 3.35 meters (10 feet, 11.9 inches). It is powered by four YF-20B engines (clustered as a YF-21B unit) which use hypergolic fuels. The four “strap-on” boosters use the same engines. The boosters are 15.6 meters (51 feet, 2.2 inches) long and 2.25 meters (7 feet, 4.6 inches) in diameter. With all eight engines running, the total rated thrust is 1,331,140 pounds (5,921.206 kilonewtons) at Sea Level. The boosters’ burn time is 2 minutes, 8 seconds, while the primary engines burn for 38 seconds longer.
The second stage is 15.52 meters (50 feet, 11 inches) long and the same diameter as the first stage. It uses one YF-24B unit, consisting of one YF-22B and four YF-23B engines. The second stage uses the same hypergolic fuel as the first stage. This stage is rated at 177,240 pounds of thrust (788,403 kilonewtons) at Sea Level and burns for 5 minutes. The Long March 2F is capable of lifting a 8,400 kilograms (18,519 pounds) payload into Low Earth Orbit.
© 2018, Bryan R. Swopes
Bryan, I was cleaning out some old boxes, and found an 8 x 10 black & white photo (circa 1972) of Learjet tail number N1500B in flight, with a signature on the back that appears to be the autograph of Hank Beaird. I’m not sure how I came to have the photo (though my dad and I both worked for Boeing in Wichita), nor do I have any idea whether it has any significance to anyone. It’s got some wrinkles and scratches, but it’s obviously a professional shot — and I hate to just throw it away. If you’re interested, I’d be happy to package it up and mail it to you at my own expense if you have any use for it–or perhaps you can put me in touch with someone else who might. Otherwise, it’ll probably end up being discarded. I can email a scan of the photo and signature if you’d like to take a look. Thanks!