Image courtesy of Apogee Components

Brief:
The Sky Shenzou is labelled a skill level 3 kit but is more likely a 2. It comes pre-finished with a beautiful body tube and can be completed in about an hour. I thought the price was also good for a rocket that gets a lot of interest on the pad and comes with an extra display satellite.

Construction:

Construction was simple but I had two issues: the instructions and the fit of some of the plastic parts. The instructions were scant and left out major points such as how far up the body tube to glue the strap-on booster mount. I know the instructions were translated from Chinese at Apogee but more effort should have been put into them. I do not accept having poor instructions and simply labelling the kit as a high skill level. I managed to get through everything fairly easily, but less experienced builders should easily be able to build this kit if given the type of instructions typical of Estes and other companies. The second issue was the fit of the nose cones and bottom covers for the booster tubes. I spent at least as much time scraping plastic from them so they would fit as I did building the rest of the kit! Still, the whole kit only took about an hour to complete. I also replaced the short shock cord with a longer one.

Image courtesy of Apogee Components

Finishing:
This kit comes with a beautifully finished body tube, which is a major reason for me choosing to build it. However, some of the plastic parts (including the nose cone) were a little off-white and would require painting to closely match the body tube. I left mine and it looks okay 15’ from the pad. It was also not mentioned in the instructions that the strap-on booster tube decals need to be placed on before inserting the tubes into their plastic mount. I had to trim mine after the fact. The decals were excellent quality, although I discovered only accidentally that the clear covering peels off the front after sticking it to the rocket. Again, this should have been mentioned in the instructions, as it is not common to most other rocket kits (in my experience). The kit comes with a display satellite that fits into the nose cone (as long as the solar panels are removed). Although I will only use this for display, I found it to be a nice extra.

Construction Rating: 3 out of 5

Flight:
This rocket's first flight was on a B6-4 (not the recommended B6-2) and its second was on a C6-5. Both flights were straight with ejection at apogee. No complaints whatsoever.

Recovery:
Flight recovery was via the supplied plastic parachute. It functioned fine and returned the Shenzhou safely to the ground without much drift.

Flight Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:
This is a great looking rocket that flies really well. The fit of the plastic parts was off but I could live with that if the instructions were better--too many "gotchas" (decals on the side pods) and methods left for the builder to figure out on his/her own.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5