Today in Space History - China's First Orbit 馃殌
Stardate 2235.7500 (OCTOBER 15, 2003)
Before the sun had fully cleared the desert horizon, a Long March rocket lifted Yang Liwei from Jiuquan. China became the third nation to place a person in orbit by its own means, and the flight that followed was deliberately modest: fourteen circuits, a little more than twenty-one hours, and a careful return to the grasslands of Inner Mongolia the same day.
Nothing about the mission sought spectacle. Yang remained in the descent module, reported that all was well, and came home within a few kilometres of the planned point. In that restraint lay the real beginning. Human spaceflight was no longer the preserve of two countries, and the door that opened that morning has stayed open.