Since the official announcement of the Shenzhou-2 (SZ-2) landing which occurred on Jan. 16 at 7:22 p.m. Beijing Time (Jan. 16 11:22 UTC), there were no photos or further words on the status and whereabouts of the returned experiments and the Descent Module. Xinhua News Agency said after the landing that the module and the experiments on board would return to Beijing "within the next few days".

Conceivably China had been withholding the information and the photos for release this Wednesday (Jan. 24) as part of the national celebration when the Chinese New Year of the Snake arrives.

Unlike the flurry of photos released right after the landing of Shenzhou on in its maiden voyage in November 1999, not a single photo is available thus far on the SZ-2 Descent Module after landing.

This is quite unexpected and uncharacteristic considering the significance of the mission.

According to official Chinese media reports, the descent parachute deployed when the module was at an altitude of 30 km. Then at 1.5 m above ground, retrorockets on the module fired to brake the descent. Immediately after the touchdown, a People's Liberation Army (PLA) commander ordered four helicopters to fly towards the site.

(All reports that appear in mainland Chinese press are official or reflect official views. There isn't any unofficial report.)

Since then there has been a complete news blackout on the recovery operations and the return of the module to Beijing, it what should have been a triumphant event for the Year of the Dragon to close on.

If China views the completion of the SZ-2 mission as a stepping stone towards sending its own astronauts in space in a few years, any significant mishap to the mission would become an immediate obstacle in that quest.

Since the SZ-2 landing, China's various state media outlets have published three news articles relating to their space program. These included China's previously announced three-stage plan to establish an orbital laboratory and a permanent man-tended space station; the training of four yuhangyuans ("astronauts"); and a summary for foreign press distribution.

Information that is known during the SZ-2 landing includes:

• At the time of the landing in central Inner Mongolia, temperatures were at minus 30 deg Celsius.
• Inner Mongolia is suffering the worst snowstorm and sandstorm season in many decades.
• The temperature has dropped to minus 50 deg Celsius in some places. Snowdrifts have made travel virtually impossible.
• Army and relief agencies are taking many hours, and in some cases days to reach isolated villages
• There is a lack of machinery to move the snow on the traffic routes, requiring snow to be sometimes removed by hand.
• SZ-2 landed during darkness.
• The descent parachute was reportedly deployed, but it is not known if the parachute expanded in full.
• Retrorockets were reportedly fired properly, again it is not known if the module was upright when the retros fired.

• During the spacecraft's descent through the atmosphere, SZ-2 came in at the wrong attitude so the module suffered significant charring, burn-through or was completely destroyed.
• SZ-2 survived the descent but the parachute didn't deploy properly. Regardless of the firing of the retrorockets, the touchdown became essentially a hard impact.
• SZ-2 made the landing according to plan but the recovery operation has taken much longer because of weather and ground conditions. Conceivably the module was lost in snowdrifts.
• SZ-2 was recovered but the helicopter that picked up the module dropped it during the flight.
• SZ-2 is still on route to Beijing delayed due to road conditions. But this doesn't prevent space officials from releasing the landing photos.
• China was holding everything for release on Wednesday when the Year of the Snake rolls around. However, the impact of a mission success is diminished compared to an immediate post-landing release of information.

In the event that the module was destroyed, Beijing could possibly pull the Shenzhou-1 Descent Module out of storage and display it as the Shenzhou-2 module. When photos of the SZ-2 module finally appear, a closer inspection and comparison of the scorch marks with the SZ-1 module is warranted.

Conceivably Beijing might also touch up a mockup of the descent module and even the landing, weather conditions permitting.

Beijing may also take a different approach to handle the mystery. There may be closed door meetings to find out what the problems are and the corrective actions.

Then Beijing may attempt to launch another mission before the launch season in autumn and winter is over. This would happen if there is another Shenzhou vehicle ready for use, funding is available and there is the political will.

If indeed the SZ-2 mission did not end with perfect scripting, the impact of the undisclosed problems will depend on their nature. Should the problem have arisen during the recovery operation, the impact may not be as severe on the manned spaceflight program.

However, if there were problems with the descent and landing phases of the mission, this would be a serious blow to the program. The impact may even extend to China's retrievable satellite program since similar technologies are involved.

The lack of information following the announced successful mission mirrors the actions of the former Soviet Union during much of their space program.

The Chinese government has emphasized repeatedly that during the next five-year plan, which runs from this year to 2006, a key emphasis will be on expanding investments in science and technology and educating the population to the benefits of science and technology.

China sees science education as the key to fostering a younger generation of scientists, who will raise the quality of its science and technologies to world standards, and the resulting national economy, to global economic power.

At the same time China is pursuing research and development in many frontier science and technology fields, such as biotechnology and nanotechnology, with research steadily approaching world levels.

But the pinnacle of a nation's technological achievement since 1961 has been to send one of its own people into space on its own rocket. This success would place China in an exclusive club along with Russia and the U.S. and drape it with one of the most important symbols of "superpower" status.

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