Bradley Perrett covered China, Japan, South Korea and Australia. He is a Mandarin-speaking Australian.
Before joining Aviation Week in 2006 he was a macroeconomics, politics and aerospace journalist with Reuters. Perrett holds a bachelor’s degree in law from Macquarie University, Sydney. He left Aviation Week in 2020.
BEIJING - China's third space mission, to be launched next year as Shenzhou 7, will have three crew members, one more than the first manned flight by the country. The China Academy of Space Technology says one of the crew members of Shenzhou 7 will go as far as 5 meters (16 feet) from the capsule during a spacewalk, plans for which have been previously announced.
BEIJING - South Korea plans to send a spacecraft to the moon with a locally developed two-stage rocket by 2020, joining the Asian space race with Japan, China and India. A South Korean lunar lander will follow in 2025 if the first probe is successful, the Ministry of Science and Technology says. The rocket design will be based on that of the KSLV 1 launcher, itself now in development, with a first stage based on the Russian Angara launcher. The KSLV 2 will be much larger than its predecessor, with a first flight planned for 2017.
South Korean turboprop operator Jeju Air plans to introduce 15 Boeing 737-800s, setting itself up as a competitor to the franchisee budget airline that Tiger Airways hopes to establish in the country. The 737-800s, some of which will be leased, will support international services, says Jeju. Two leased aircraft will arrive in April, with the full fleet to be in service by 2013. Jeju, which now operates four Bombardier Q400s domestically, already describes itself as a budget airline.
