China and the U.S. are restarting talks on space cooperation as final preparations are underway for a major Chinese manned space endeavor. China is also preparing to loft the first spacecraft in a unique optical/radar imaging constellation to aid rescue and recovery from natural disasters around the world.

The discussions, after a two-year hiatus, were held in Beijing in July between a U.S. delegation headed by Assistant Administrator Michael F. O'Brien, NASA's international affairs chief, and a Chinese delegation led by Sun Laiyan and Luo Ge. Sun heads the China National Space Administration, and Luo is CNSA deputy administrator. Both sides agreed to establish working groups on space and Earth science, in addition to addressing a framework for broader cooperation, say CNSA and NASA officials.

The negotiations took place just after China Great Wall Industry Corp., the nation's international space trading company, convinced the U.S. Treasury Dept. to remove stiff sanctions for alleged missile technology deals with Iran. The department quietly lifted the sanctions in June, but the timing of the NASA meeting was unrelated to the Treasury action, says O'Brien.

The Treasury Dept. says Great Wall has instituted major reforms, a move that U.S. experts on China see as a positive shift toward China's recognition of U.S. law and international agreements against proliferation (see p. 31).

The advanced technology involved in the new manned Shenzhou and robotic imaging constellation missions, coupled with cooperative space measures by the Chinese government, is a powerful reminder that China continues on the move in space, says Andrew S. Erickson, assistant professor in the Strategic Research Dept. of the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I.

The Shenzhou 7 mission, with a still-secret launch date between now and mid-October, will carry three astronauts, two of whom are to perform China's first extravehicular activity (EVA). Nearly 40 changes have been made to the Shenzhou hardware to support three astronauts for several days in space.

There are still many unknowns about the flight. The most significant of the changes is the conversion of the forward orbital module into an airlock from which to stage the EVA using what analysts believe will be two different spacesuits - one Russian and one Chinese.

Deputy Shenzhou Design Chief Pan Jian told Aviation Week & Space Technology here last spring that China has developed its own new suit for this and future Chinese EVA flights. This is a great source of pride to Chinese space managers, since an EVA suit is an extremely high-technology system of life support components and advanced materials, including micro­meteoroid protection. The much lighter weight suits worn during launch and reentry are simpler aircraft-type pressure suits not capable of EVA operations.

The Chinese EVA suit, under development for 15 years, has been tested many times by astronauts in a vacuum chamber on Earth and during parabolic aircraft flights simulating 0g. But since the device is untested in space, China is expected to equip the second EVA astronaut with a proven Russian Orlan suit. Although in a vacuum environment, he will remain mostly in the depressurized airlock module, ready to rescue if necessary the crewmember in the Chinese suit, should it fail.

In the mid-1960s, both the U.S. and Soviet Union had difficulties during early EVAs, and the first planned space shuttle EVA on STS-5 had to be canceled when both new shuttle suits had malfunctions in the orbiter's airlock.