The Shenzhou is a capsule-type, non-reusable spacecraft vehicle designed to carry up to three astronauts for a solo orbital flight of up to 7 days, or to ferry them to the space station and then return them to Earth. It can also be docked to the space station to serve as a ‘lift boat’. Launched atop the CZ-2F launch vehicle, the spacecraft was modelled after the Russian Soyuz-TM but slightly larger in size and has been developed mostly from Chinese technology.
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