SZ-4

The SZ (Shenzou) is the first crewed spacecraft of the Peoples Republic of China. It owns much of its basic design to the Russian Soyuz capsule, which has a very similar genaral layout. Like the Soyuz, it consists of an orbital module, a return module and an engineering module. Although technology transfers from russia may have had influences in the design of the space craft, the SZ seems to be an mostly independent development.

Unlike the Soyuz, the SZ's orbital module has the capability of a free-flyer, which continues its mission after the deorbiting of the return capsule. In the first 6 missions, the orbital modules contained instruments for Earth observation. The SZ 7 orbital module is modified, featuring no solar arrays, but handrails for EVA, more gas containers and a deployable subsatellite.

The flight of SZ 2 ended possibly in failure, as no images of the return module were published in press, but SZ 1 and 3 returned succefully to earth. The flight of SZ 4 ended successful with the landing on 5. January 2003. Shenzou 5 carried the first chinese astronaut ('Taikonaut') Yang Liwei into orbit on 15. October 2004. Shenzou 6 was the first chinese flight with two Taikonauts. Shenzou 7 featured China's first spacewalk.