Posted: Thu, Jan 2, 2003, 8:22 PM ET (0122 GMT)
A key Chinese official said Thursday that the next flight of China's Shenzhou spacecraft, scheduled for later this year, will carry one or more humans. Yuan Jie, director of the Shanghai Aerospace Bureau, was quoted in Chinese media as saying that Shenzhou 5, scheduled for launch in the latter half of 2003, will carry people. Yuan said that Shenzhou 5 is now in an "overall assembly and testing phase" in preparation for the mission. The reports gave no indication of how many people will fly on the mission,; the spacecraft has a capacity of three, Western experts believe. The comments were made four days after the launch of Shenzhou 4, now expected to be the last unmanned test flight of the Shenzhou spacecraft.

Related Links:

•  China Daily article
•  Reuters article
•  AP article
•  BBC article