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On September 27, 2008, taikonaut (the Chinese equivalent of an astronaut) Zhai Zhigang exited head-first from the orbital module of the spacecraft at 4:40 p.m. CST. He attached himself to a handrail and addressed a live audience in China, exclaiming, “I am here greeting the Chinese people and the people of the world.” Zhai waved around a small Chinese flag handed to him by his crewmate Liu Boming, collected an experimental solid lubricant sample, and then climbed back into the spacecraft. The whole excursion lasted around twenty minutes.
This monumental feat was part of the third human spaceflight mission in the Chinese space program, Shenzhou VII. Three astronauts were chosen: Zhai Zhigang (the commander), Liu Boming, and Jing Haipeng. They launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China on the 25th of September and returned after three days, landing in inner Mongolia. During the mission, the taikonauts also released a miniaturized cube-shaped satellite featuring two cameras and a liquid ammonia engine that relayed images of the spacecraft.
A lot of preparation went into this mission. The China Astronaut Training Center built a ten meter deep training pool that featured a model of the orbital module that allowed astronauts to practice the spacewalk. The carrier rocket was tweaked to solve some of the vibration problems that plagued earlier missions. Other elements of the spacecraft were also modified. Unlike previous models, the Shenzhou VII orbital capsule had extra handrails, more cameras, and no solar panels. This allowed the astronauts to safely move outside of the spacecraft. For this mission, the Chinese space program also developed a spacesuit. They dubbed it Feitian, named after cloud spirits depicted in the Mogao Caves in Gansu, China. It cost around 4.4 million US dollars to create, featured ten layers of insulation, weighed around 265 pounds, and took around fifteen hours to assemble and put on.
The Shenzhou VII mission received commendations from multiple world leaders and received the 2009 Space Achievement Award from the Space Foundation, an American nonprofit organization. Zhai Zhigang’s spacewalk made China the third country in the world to successfully conduct an extravehicular activity in space and acted as a powerful demonstration of China’s economic and technological prowess.
