Bradley Perrett covered China, Japan, South Korea and Australia. He is a Mandarin-speaking Australian.
Before joining Aviation Week in 2006 he was a macroeconomics, politics and aerospace journalist with Reuters. Perrett holds a bachelor’s degree in law from Macquarie University, Sydney. He left Aviation Week in 2020.
CHINA CAPSULE DOCKS: China’s unmanned Shenzhou 8 capsule performed the first of two planned orbital docking maneuvers with the Tiangong 1 target module on Nov. 3, marking an essential milestone as the country mounts plans to orbit its own space station. Official state media, while keen to play up the propaganda value of the docking, frankly noted that the U.S. had coupled two spacecraft in orbit 45 years ago with the Gemini 8 mission.
BEIJING — The modified Long March 2F rocket that launched China’s Shenzhou 8 capsule on Nov. 1 performed with exceptional precision, space program officials say.
BEIJING — Chinese technicians have fueled the Long March 2F launcher that is due on Nov. 1 local time to loft Shenzhou 8, the second of two spacecraft that will be used in the country’s crucial space docking exercise. The other, the Tiangong 1 laboratory, has been lowered to the altitude planned for rendezvous, 343 km (213 mi.), and turned 180 deg. to mate with Shenzhou 8, a human transportation capsule that will be launched without a crew. Tiangong 1 is also unmanned. China has not launched a Shenzhou capsule since 2008.
