中国的航天发展历程

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China's Space Program
A: Welcome back to Listeners' Garden. I'm KF.

B: And I'm DS. During the past few weeks, we've been bringing you a five-part listener's knowledge contest marking the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of china. Today in the fifth part of the quiz, we'll take a look at the development of China's space program over the past six decades.

A: Here are the two questions for today's report:
Question No.1: Who was the first Chinese astronaut to walk in space?
And question No.2: When did China launch its first satellite?

B: Now our reporter Damin will bring us the final part of the quiz.

This was Chinese astronaut Zhai Zhigang greeting people all over the world when he performed a space walk on September 27, 2008, during China's Shenzhou 7 manned space mission.

The event marked a milestone in China's space exploration program as Zhai Zhigang became the first Chinese person to accomplish a space walk, and China became the third country following the former Soviet Union and the United States to conduct extravehicular activities in space.

The development of manned space technologies represents comprehensive strength in science and technology. China is the third country in the world to develop a manned space flight program independently. But the country's great achievements in the space industry haven't come easily. 60 years ago when the People's Republic of China was founded, making a journey to the space seemed to be a distant dream to the Chinese people.

China embarked on the road to develop its space industry in the mid-1950s. After decades of research, the country developed a series of Long March rockets capable of sending various kinds of satellites into space.

The first rocket of the Long March family blasted off in 1970, sending China's first man-made satellite into orbit. Five years later, China launched its first recoverable remote sensing satellite. After three days of operation, the satellite returned as planned, making China the third country in the world to master satellite recovery technology.

Three launch sites have been set up in the country. They are all able to make domestic satellite launches and international commercial launches. In 1985, the Chinese government announced that the Long March rockets would be put on the international commercial markets to provide satellite launching services for foreign countries. Since then, China has successfully launched over 30 foreign-made satellites into space.