Russia began the Space Race with the launch of Sputnik; the U.S. scrambled to catch up and then stunned the world with the first ever man on the moon. A little later, the two put aside their differences (at least, in that one realm) to join forces in space exploration. But for fifty years they had a monopoly on spaceflight: the projects were so logistically complicated, so prohibitively expensive, that no other nation had the desire to undertake it. Only after the turn of the new millenium was that monopoly was finally broken by China, with their own space launch.

On this day, September 25, in 2008, China’s Shenzhou 7 spacecraft launched Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, in the Gobi desert of Upper Mongolia. This was China’s third manned mission since the first launch in 2005.

The three taikonauts participated in China’s first ever spacewalk, and became part of the first Chinese three-person space crew. They also conducted a solid-lubricant experiment and released a miniature satellite to test observation and docking maneuvers.