On Nov. 3，China’s unmanned spacecraft Shenzhou-8 and its space lab module Tiangong-1 docked successfully, marking another historic breakthrough of the 3rd phase of China’s manned space program.
Space docking program is a huge and complicated program. Professor YU Xiaoliu from School of Mechanical Engineering participated in the preparatory work of “Ground Laboratory for Space Docking Program” as early as in 2001, which is also known as 921 Program. He has completed the lab’s site planning, responsible for the overall design for the key platform of the five ground testing platforms - "Five Degrees of Freedom Test-bed for Docking Cushion" , and accomplished two921sub-projectsresearch work.
