The Purple Mountain Observatory under the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced it has named two asteroids after Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng, two astronauts from China's second manned space mission in 2005. According to Yang Jiexing, secretary of the asteroids naming committee in the observatory, the naming decision has been approved by the International Astronomical Union. The code numbers of the two asteroids, respectively 9512 and 9517, coincide with the dates on which the Shenzhou VI was launched and returned. The Shenzhou VI manned spaceship took off on Oct. 12, 2005, circled around Earth continuously for five days and returned on Oct. 17, 2005.
