hina's third unmanned space vehicle, Shenzhou 3, is circling the earth once every ninety minutes since Tuesday night and is being monitored by Chinese tracking vessels, one of which is already in place in the Indian Ocean.

Shenzhou 3 (divine vessel) was launched late Monday night from the Jiuguan space launch center in Gansu province in northwestern China. It was carried into space by what the Chinese have identified as a Long March 2F carrier rocket.

Indicating the national prestige which the Chinese Communist Party has attached to putting a Chinese vehicle into space, President Jiang Zemin, wearing the military uniform which he wears as chairman of the CCP's military affairs commission, attended the launch and congratulated all those involved in it.

"The successful launch shows the Chinese spirit of constantly striving to become stronger," Jiang was reported as saying "The Long March carrier rockets and the Shenzhou spacecraft represent the nation's scientific and technological achievements." This is the third launch of the Shenzhou spacecraft, which scientific observers maintain is closely related technically to the former workhorse of the Russian space programmer, the Soyuz capsule.

The first lunch was in November 1999 when Shenzhou 1 cricled the globe 14 times in roughly 21 hours. This success gave rise to foreign speculation that China would send a man into space by 2001, but the Chinese space programmer has preferred to move ahead persistently but cautiously.

The second launch came in January 2001 with Shenzhou 2 circling the earth 108 times in nearly a week. Shenzhou 2 was composed of two prototypes a re-entry capsule and an orbiting module.

The orbiting module stayed in space for six months and it is expected that the same will be true with Shenzhou 3. Shenzhou 3's re-entry capsule, on the other hand, is expected to parachute back to the grasslands of Inner Mongolia in two or three day's time.