Fun

Having been trained for a decade for the manned space mission, the men were eager to enjoy the feeling of a "real" loss of gravity, as Liu Boming said when meeting reporters before they started the space journey.

Liu flipped a pencil and smiled while watching it floating as soon as Shenzhou-7 entered the orbit, while Zhai let go his work manual and watched with keen interest.

They also took every chance to take as many pictures as possible.

At 1:30 p.m. Friday, Jing moved to the left side of the module and started taking pictures of the earth. He stopped for a while to check the photos, but then, apparently not very satisfied, started to press the camera button again.

Chinese experts work at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC) in Beijng, capital of China, Sept. 26, 2008. BACC, the nerve center of China's outer space program, becomes the navigator for the Shenzhou-7 after China's third manned spaceship Shenzhou-7 moved into orbit on Friday.

Work

Of course, working is the most important part.

On Friday morning, Shenzhou-7 entered a stable circular orbit where the taikonauts assembled the 4.4-million-dollar homemade Feitian space suit for extra-vehicular activity (EVA) and started training for the country's maiden spacewalk.

Zhai and Liu spent more than 11 hours unpacking and assembling the EVA suits in the orbital module, while Jing stayed in the re-entry module to keep an eye on the vessel operation.

The two began adaptive training after finishing assembling the suits. The training, which was to make sure the taikonauts could adapt to the low-gravity environment in space, lasted about 100 minutes.

The spacewalk, expected to last about 30 minutes, is scheduled to take place at 4:30 p.m. Saturday. The whole process would be broadcast live on television, according to Wang Zhaoyao, spokesperson with the manned space program.

The ground crew work at the Beijing Space Command and Control Center in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 26, 2008. The Shenzhou-7 spacecraft, which blasted off at 9:10 p.m. Thursday at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China's Gansu Province, has functioned well as planned.

(Xinhua News Agency September 27)