China has launched the second of three modules that together with the main body make up the highly ambitious ‘Tiangong’ space station.
The new module, dubbed Wentian, was launched on a Long March 5B rocket on Sunday at 2:22 PM (06:22 GMT) from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on Hainan Island, China.
Wentian, a research lab dedicated to science and biology experiments, is already docked with the main body of the space station, called Tianhe.
It will be followed by a second research lab module, Mengtian, to be launched in October this year.
When Mengtian bonds with the rest of Tiangong, construction of the space station will finally be complete, although Beijing also plans to launch Xuntian, a space telescope that would run alongside the space station, in 2024.
Tiangong (meaning “heavenly palace”) will rival the aging International Space Station (ISS), operated by the space agencies of the US, Canada, Russia, Japan and Europe.
It will consist of three modules, although two other spacecraft – Shenzhou and Tianzhou – carrying crew and cargo respectively, can also dock at the station.
A Long March-5B Y3 rocket carrying China’s space station lab module Wentian explodes on July 24, 2022 in Wenchang, Hainan province, China
China’s second module rocket for its Tiangong space station takes off from the Wenchang spaceport as the crowd watches
Wentian, which will be a base for science and biology experiments, is already docked to the main body of the space station
3D rendering of the Chinese space station or Tiangong space station as it will look like when fully built. Tianhe is the main living quarters for the crew members. Shenzhou is an existing spacecraft docking with crew at the station. Tianzhou is an existing cargo spacecraft;
The launch of Wentian was ‘a great success’, reports the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
After a 13-hour flight, Wentian successfully docked at the Tianhe living room of the Tiangong space station at 03:13 Monday (19:13 GMT), according to the China Manned Space Agency.
Three astronauts currently in the core module for a six-month mission — Cai Xuzhe, Chen Dong and Liu Yang — oversaw Wentian’s arrival and docking procedures.
Photos showed the three astronauts waving at cameras from Wentian and beaming back to the Beijing Aerospace Control Center.
“This is the first time China has linked such large vehicles together, which is a delicate operation,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Until the next module arrives (Mengtian), the space station will have a “rather unusual L-shape” that will require a lot of force to stay stable, McDowell said.
“These are all technical challenges that the USSR pioneered with the Mir station in the late 1980s, but it is new to China,” he told AFP.
“But it will result in a much more capable station with the space and power to conduct more scientific experiments.”
At nearly 18 meters (60 feet) long and weighing 23 tons (48,500 pounds), Wentian is heavier than any other single-module spacecraft currently in space, according to the state-owned Global Times.
The Wenchang Space Launch Center is a rocket launch site in Hainan Island, China
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, an image taken from the screen at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center shows Chinese astronauts from the left, Cai Xuzhe, Chen Dong and Liu Yang waving from the Wentian lab module on Monday, July 25, 2022
Chinese astronaut Chen Dong operates equipment in the Wentian lab module on Monday, July 25, 2022
The Tiangong space station, currently under construction, can be seen in this artistic rendering (file photo)
It provides astronauts with a pressurized environment to perform tests without gravity, as well as a robotic arm for remote experiments.
The Tianhe module of China’s new space station – the first module launched in April last year – is the main living quarters for crew members aboard Tiangong.
When completed, the Tiangong space station will weigh about 66 tons, much smaller than the ISS, which launched its first module in 1998 and weighs about 450 tons. The service life is expected to be at least 10 years.
Currently in orbit, the ISS has taken 10 years and more than 30 missions to assemble, since the launch of the first module in 1998.
The ISS is supported by five participating space agencies — NASA (US), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), and CSA (Canada) — but China was originally barred from participating by the US.
Tiangong’s first crew arrived in Tianhe in June 2021 and returned to Earth in September after a 90-day mission.
The second crew of two men and a woman — Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu and Wang Yaping — arrived in mid-October 2021 and was there much longer — six months.
In early November, Yaping became China’s first female spacewalker after completing a six-hour task outside the station along with Zhigang.
Cai Xuzhe, Chen Dong and Liu Yang are the third crew of three to have lived aboard Tiangong.
They arrived in June this year and will likely spend six months on the space station, to be replaced by three more Chinese astronauts.
China has stepped up its space program with an unmanned mission to the moon – which returned the first lunar samples to Earth in more than 45 years – and the launch of an unmanned probe to Mars, as well as building its own space station.
In contrast, the fate of the aging ISS — which has been in orbit for more than two decades — remains uncertain and could be dismantled and destroyed by 2031.
After what will be an impressive 32-year career, NASA plans to sink the ISS into an ocean in one of the most remote places on Earth – otherwise known as a “spacecraft cemetery.”