The People’s Republic of China is now one of the great space powers – now the “Tiangong” space station is about to be completed – the last module is being launched into space. It should be permanently occupied in the next few years. But China wants to go even further.
China is about to complete its Tiangong space station. A Long March 5B rocket launched from the Wenchang Cosmodrome with the third and final module of the space station, Chinese state media reported. The Tiangong space station, whose name translates to “Heaven’s Palace,” is part of China’s ambitious space strategy, which also envisages a manned moon mission before the end of this decade.
The rocket with the module called “Mengtian” – in German about “sky dreams” – started at 3:27 p.m. local time (08:27 a.m. CET) from the spaceport on the Chinese tropical island of Hainan, as reported by the state broadcaster CCTV. Space enthusiasts and amateur photographers watched the spectacle from a nearby beach.
Surrounded by enthusiastic colleagues in the control room, Wenchang Cosmodrome commander Deng Hongqin said the rocket launch was a “complete success”. The rocket with the new module has reached the intended orbit and the mission is proceeding “normally”.
The “Mengtian” module completes the nearly 18 meter long, T-shaped “Tiangong” space station. The new module is equipped with state-of-the-art research equipment, state news agency Xinhua reported. This also includes the first so-called cold atomic clock stationed in space. If successful, it will be “the most precise time and frequency system in space, not losing a second in hundreds of millions of years,” quoted Xinhua Zhang Wei of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The “Tiangong” space station, which required a total of eleven space missions to set up, should be in operation for at least ten years. After its completion, it should be permanently occupied. Teams of three taikonauts will take turns conducting scientific experiments and testing new technologies on the space station.
A team of two men and one woman is currently staying on the space station for six months. They will be joined by three more taikonauts to finish assembling the space station by the end of the year. The United States’ refusal to allow China access to the International Space Station contributed to China’s decision to build its own space station.
“Tiangong” is part of China’s ambitious space strategy, with which the People’s Republic wants to catch up with the USA and Russia. To this end, it has invested billions in its space programs in recent years. Next year, China plans to send the Xuntian space telescope into space.
China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003, and in 2019 it brought an unmanned spacecraft to the far side of the moon from Earth. In 2020, a Chinese moon probe collected rock samples from the Earth’s satellite, and in 2021 a Mars robot from the People’s Republic landed on the red planet. The Chinese government plans to send humans to the moon for the first time in 2029.
Analyst Chen Lan of the website Go-Taikonauts.com described the completion of the Chinese space station as “very significant”. The People’s Republic is now “an actor in space on a par with the USA, Russia and Europe, which also gives it significant political influence,” said the expert.