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[i]The two sides met at Dordain’s request on the sidelines of the European Space Agency’s third Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) launch to the ISS March 23 to further establish a dialogue and lay the groundwork for potential Sino-European cooperation in manned spaceflight. “For the moment we cannot dock and rendezvous with the ISS, because our system is not the same as the Americans or the Russians,” said Wang Zhaoyao, the newly named director general of the China Manned Space Engineering Office (Cmseo), adding that experts from both agencies are expected to establish a working group that will meet in Paris next month to discuss Shenzhou’s compatibility with a planned ISS common docking mechanism. “We would like to have cooperation.” The bilateral talks come just months ahead of China’s plan to perform its first manned space-docking operation with Shenzhou 9. Wang says a crew of three onboard the spacecraft are expected to board the Tiangong 1 pressurized “docking target” space module launched last September, following a combination of automated and manual rendezvous and docking procedures. Dordain says the two sides are discussing a range of collaborative opportunities in the area of manned spaceflight, including astronaut training, life-support systems and utilization of each other’s space station facilities. While no concrete proposals are on the table, Dordain says the ISS partners should be open to cooperation with other countries, including China...[/i]
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