China’s English language state owned television channel CCTV9 has revealed the fact that on its past two manned missons the astronauts have experienced physical discomfort from the vibration of the rocket on its ascent
The tv news segment goes on to report that the rocket’s chief designer says that changes to the “frequencies” of the engines and the “electrical circuits” have been made to try to eliminate this vibration problem
The news report says that in total 30 improvements have been made to the Long March-2F since the Shenzhou VI mission in 2005 and that the Shenzhou VII rocket will undergo ten tests at its launch site. It also says that the Long March-2F’s Shenzhou spacecraft payload is eight tons, but is that metric tonnes or English unit tons?
You can read a detailed account of the plan for the Shenzhou VII mission at David Leonard’s blog here
