China will launch the manned spacecraft Shenzhou VII next year and its comprehensive whole-craft test has started with numerous major breakthroughs having made for its new-generation carrier rockets, according to Ma Xingrui, deputy chief of the Chang'e-1 lunar orbiting project and vice-president of the China Aerospace Science Group.

China is set to launch the Shenzhou VII spacecraft in 2008 and, by then, Chinese astronauts will, for the first time, conduct outer-cabin spacewalk, Ma said, adding that knotty problems relating to air brake and other key technologies have overcome, and the whole craft has undergone a comprehensive, whole-craft test phase, and that the general assembly of the rocket which is to carry Shenzhou VII spacecraft in the vast space is expected to be completed by late December.

(People's Daily, December 4, 2007)