Shenzhou 5
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Key facts
- Mission type
- Crewed test flight
- Operator
- China Manned Space Agency
- Cospar id
- 2003-045A
- Mission duration
- 21 hours, 22 minutes, 45 seconds
- Spacecraft type
- Shenzhou
- Manufacturer
- China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation
- Launch mass
- 7,840 kg (17,280 lb)
- Members
- Yang Liwei
- Launch date
- 15 October 2003, 01:00:03 UTC (09:00:03 CST )
- Rocket
- Long March 2F (Y5)
- Launch site
- Jiuquan , LA-4/SLS-1
- Contractor
- China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology
- Landing date
- 15 October 2003, 22:22:48 UTC
- Landing site
- Inner Mongolia ( 42°14′36″N 111°29′36″E / 42.24333°N 111.49333°E / 42.24333; 111.49333 )
- Reference system
- Geocentric orbit
- Regime
- Low Earth orbit
- Perigee altitude
- 332 km (206 mi)
- Apogee altitude
- 336 km (209 mi)
via Wikipedia infobox
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Encyclopedic overview
Shenzhou 5 (Chinese: 神舟五号; pinyin: Shénzhōu Wǔ Hào, see § Etymology) was the first human spaceflight mission of the Chinese space program, launched on 15 October 2003. The Shenzhou spacecraft was launched on a Long March 2F launch vehicle. There had been four previous flights of uncrewed Shenzhou missions since 1999. China became the third country in the world to have independent human spaceflight capability after the Soviet Union/Russia and the United States. As of June 2026, this mission marks the last recent time an astronaut was launched alone to conduct an entirely solo orbital mission.
Crew
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Shenzhou 5” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.