China nears completion of house station, closing module docks with Tiangong

On Monday, China launched the third and closing module of its house station. It would be the second completely working outpost in low-Earth orbit, following NASA’s International Space Station.

The unmanned Mengtian, or “Dreaming of the Heavens,” module was launched at 3:37 PM (0737 GMT) from the Wenchang Space Launch Center within the southern island province of Hainan by China’s strongest rocket, the Long March 5B. Deng Hongqin, director of the launch command centre, acknowledged that the module was in orbit after 14 minutes.

The closing module of China’s Tiangong house station efficiently docked with the core construction on Tuesday, state media mentioned — a key step in its completion by 12 months’s finish and a landmark second within the nation’s house ambitions ➡️https://t.co/gW5jkxiqFG pic.twitter.com/JkybR0TQGt

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) October 31, 2022

The 23-ton, 59-foot-long Mengtian module linked with the Tiangong house station 13 hours after launch. The module consists of a wide range of scientific tools, together with exceptionally exact atomic clocks and tools designed to copy the coldest situations but reached by people.

Image: AFP

China has efficiently launched the core module, three manned spacecraft, the Wentian lab module, and 6 cargo spacecraft to develop Tiangong over the last two years. According to the house company, the three-member crew of the Shenzhou-14 mission, who are actually residing within the house station, shall be joined by three extra astronauts to complete the development of Tiangong by the tip of this 12 months.

China barred from the International Space Station since 2011

Since 2011, when Washington prohibited NASA from interacting with Beijing, China has been barred from the International Space Station (ISS). The completion of the Chinese house station is the newest step in Beijing’s bigger purpose to problem, and finally surpass, the United States in house exploration, in addition to to develop a large base of data for China’s monumental and quickly rising scientific institution.

Tianhe, the station’s principal module, was launched into orbit final 12 months. China adopted in July by launching the primary of two scientific modules, the Wentian, which docked with the core. With the Mengtian module docked, the total house station resembles a “T” configuration. Tiangong, which interprets as “heavenly palace,” shall be operational for round a decade and can host a spread of near-zero gravity experiments.

International curiosity in experiments to be performed on the Chinese station will rise if the ISS retires within the upcoming years. The ISS has held greater than 3,000 scientific experiments since November 2000. China has granted approval to a minimum of 9 proposals from researchers in international locations starting from India to Switzerland for the primary spherical of testing carried out in partnership with the United Nations Space Agency.