China's astronauts prepare for 1st spacewalk

China's astronauts arrived at their desert launch centre on Sunday to make final preparations for the country's third manned space mission and first to include a space walk.

Three astronauts or taikonauts, as they are called in China are scheduled to pilot the Shenzhou-7 spacecraft on the mission, which is scheduled to launch in the next week.

The earliest launch time is set for 9:10 a.m. ET on Thursday, Sept. 25.

The three astronauts and their three alternates arrived at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the northwestern Gansu Province on Sunday.

The planned spacewalk will be another first for China's manned space program, which has been operating at an accelerating pace in its efforts to catch up with the established programs of the U.S. and Russia.

Zhai Zhigang, a 42-year-old fighter pilot and a colonel in the People's Liberation Army, is scheduled totake the spacewalk. The other two astronauts to take part in the flight are Liu Boming and Jing Haipeng, both also 42 and fighter pilots.

The space flight is scheduled to last for 68 hours.

In October 2003, China joined the U.S. and the former Soviet Union as just the third country to put a man in space with its own rocket. A second manned space mission sent two more astronauts on a five-day flight in October 2005.

The scheduled launch also marks another milestone for China's space program, as foreign journalists will be allowed at the launch centre for the first time, the Xinxua news agency said Monday.

The decision to allow foreign press marks a departure for the country's space agency, but the decision stems from government regulations designed to open access to the press that were put in place in 2006 in anticipation of the Olympic Games.