China launches Shenzhou 5, its first crewed space mission.
Shenzhou 5 was the first human spaceflight mission of the Chinese space program, launched on 15 October 2003. The Shenzhou spacecraft was launched on a Long March 2F launch vehicle. There had been four previous flights of uncrewed Shenzhou missions since 1999. China became the third country in the world to have independent human spaceflight capability after the Soviet Union/Russia and the United States.
As of October 2026, this mission marks the last recent time an astronaut was launched alone to conduct an entirely solo orbital mission.
Watch: Documenting China's Modernization EP42: Launch of Shenzhou-5 in October 2003
From the CGTN Global Watch channel.
Sources and further reading: Wikipedia — Shenzhou 5 (CC BY-SA). Images: Wikimedia Commons.
