Shenzhou VIII off to rendezvous in space

'Docking of spacecraft like two people holding hands'

BEIJING - If all went as planned, China's unmanned Shenzhou VIII spacecraft is now on its way to a rendezvous with the Tiangong-1 space module circling hundreds of kilometers above the Earth's surface.

Part of China's first docking mission in space, the launch of Shenzhou VIII at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert has to be calculated and carried out to the precise second.