China’s First “Space Kiss”

November 2, 2011 | 8:11 pm
Gregory Kulacki
China Project Manager

This is a video of the docking of the Shenzhou VIII and Tiangong 1 spacecraft captured from a Chinese television broadcast. The two spacecraft will circle the earth together for approximately 12 days. They then will briefly part company and hook up a second time before the Shenzhou VIII begins its return to the landing site in Inner Mongolia. Tiangong 1 will be left in orbit awaiting its next visitor, Shenzhou VIX, which could carry Chinese astronauts to the experimental space lab at an as yet unspecified date in 2012.

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Gregory Kulacki is a Senior Analyst and the China Project Manager for the Global Security Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Research Center for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (RECNA) at Nagasaki University. He works on improving cross-cultural communication between the United States of America, China and Japan on nuclear weapons and related security issues. Prior to joining UCS in 2002, Dr. Kulacki was the Director of External Studies at Pitzer College, an Associate Professor of Government at Green Mountain College and the China Director for the Council on International Educational Exchange. Gregory completed his doctorate in government and politics at the University of Maryland College Park.