JIUQUAN, Oct. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- Much improvement has been made on the
Shenzhou-6 spacecraft to be put into space Wednesday on the basis of Shenzhou-5,
China's first manned spacecraft that orbited the Earth two years ago, a senior
expert said here Tuesday.
Sufficient or even surplus food, water and sleeping bags are prepared for
the two astronauts to be aboard Shenzhou-6. The air condensation system is
improved to ensure humidity inside the spacecraft is below 80 percent, said
Zhang Bainan, chief designer of the spacecraft system.
In the orbital module, there are a food heater, dishware and a sleeping
bag, and the excrement collecting facility is used for first time.
The buffer function of chairs in the return module is improved.The
designers also invented a kind of cloth to clean the gates of modules, Zhang
said.
Compared with Shenzhou-5, the black box of Shenzhou-6 is 100 larger in
storage space, 10 times quicker in message writing and reading, but only half in
size.