If all goes well, three "taikonauts" will embark Thursday on a three-day Earth-orbit mission, which includes the country's first spacewalk.

如果一切顺利，三名“太空人”将于周四开始一段为期三天的太空之旅，其中一项任务是该国首次太空行走。

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The craft, known as MESSENGER, began the orbit around 9:00 p.m. (0200 GMT) on a mission to circle the planet for one Earth year in an unprecedented study of the tiny, hot planet.

名为“信使”号的该航天器于晚上9点(格林威治标准时间凌晨2点)进入水星轨道，并在此后为期1地球年的时间内，环绕这个细小炎热行星进行史上第一次的研究。

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The mission was planned as a low-Earth orbit to test the Lunar Module, the lander later used by Apollo 11 and subsequent missions to land on the moon's surface.

他们的使命只是做地球低轨道飞行，以测试月球舱和阿波罗11号以及以后的登月任务所使用的登月舱。

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Twelve years before the historic Apollo 11 mission, the Soviets successfully launched the first artificial satellite called Sputnik into Earth's orbit.

VOA: standard.2009.07.16

More like a mission to low Earth orbit.

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In previous missions in Earth orbit, you lost a lot of the mission time because you could not observe when the Earth itself was shining in the telescope.

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He and his two crew mates explained that NASA originally planned for their mission to stay in earth's orbit, like all previous missions.

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