In brief: China completes step toward space station

Beijing – An unmanned Chinese spacecraft returned to Earth on Thursday night after it docked twice with an orbiting module in preparation for the country launching its own space station.

The Shenzhou 8 craft landed by parachute in China’s western desert after more than two weeks in space. It docked twice with the Tiangong 1 module, which remains in orbit, during a mission proving China capable of successfully docking by remote control.

China will conduct two more space docking missions next year, one of them manned, and plans to complete a manned space station around 2020. At about 60 tons, the Chinese station will be considerably smaller than the 16-nation International Space Station.

China has made steady progress toward a space station since a 2003 launch that made it only the third nation to put a man in space. Two more manned missions have followed, and China separately seeks to launch a lunar rover next year.

Brazil police probe Chevron oil spill

Sao Paulo – The Brazilian Federal Police on Thursday began investigating an oil spill in an offshore field operated by Chevron Corp., a leak that an environmental group alleges is far bigger than the company has stated.

Fabio Scliar, head of the Federal Police department’s environmental affairs division, told government news service Agencia Brasil that his division began to look into the causes and extent of the spill.

Globo TV’s G1 website quoted Scliar as saying that technicians he sent to the offshore field came back with information that conflicted with that provided by Chevron. He said they only saw one ship being used in the cleanup while Chevron has said there were 18 being used on a rotating basis.

Scliar said there was also conflicting information regarding the size of the leak.