subscribe
Back to the archive
Share

Issue 65

07 Flash Archive · Members Only

China Space Station Open for Business

16 Jan 2023: Space Review article on China's space station accomplishments and ambitions. With the launch of the Shenzhou 15 mission, China became only the third nation to operate a permanently crewed space station. China's space station, Tiangong, is entirely built and run by China. The successful opening of the station is the beginning…

Author Minhas Published January 29, 2023

16 Jan 2023: Space Review article on China's space station accomplishments and ambitions.

With the launch of the Shenzhou 15 mission, China became only the third nation to operate a

permanently crewed space station. China's space station, Tiangong, is entirely built and run by

China. The successful opening of the station is the beginning of some exciting science. But the

station also highlights the country’s policy of self-reliance and an important step for China

toward achieving its larger space ambitions.

– Tiangong is 55m long and is comprised of three modules launched separately and connected in space. The Tiangong core module can support up to six taikonauts and two experiment modules which combine for a total 110 cubic meters of space (about one-fifth the size of the International Space Station). -Tiangong is based on a Soviet-era design is a near copy of the Soviet Mir space station from the 1980s. However, the Tiangong station is heavily modernized and improved. – The Chinese space station is slated to stay in orbit for 15 years, with plans to send two six-month crewed missions and two cargo missions annually. Science experiments underway include a planned study involving monkey reproduction commencing in the station’s biological test cabinets. Whether the monkeys will cooperate is an entirely different matter. – Tiangong is made and managed by China, but they have an open invitation for other nations to collaborate on experiments aboard Tiangong. So far, China selected nine projects from 17 countries. – In Dec 2023, China is planning to launch a new space telescope called Xuntian. This telescope will map stars and supermassive black holes among other projects with a resolution about the same as the Hubble Space Telescope…but with a wider view. The telescope will periodically dock with the station for maintenance. – It remains to be seen how space collaboration will change in the coming years. The US-led Artemis program aims to build a self- sustaining habitat on the Moon and open to all nations with more than 20 countries already partnering. China also recently opened its joint Moon mission with Russia to other nations. This was partly driven by warming Chinese-Russian relations but also because Sweden, France, and the European Space Agency cancelled planned missions with Russia over Ukraine.

Video

China Space Station Open for Business

Original PDF links: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3 · Source 4 · Source 5 · Source 6 · Source 7 · Source 8 · Source 9 · Source 10 · Source 11 · Source 12 · Source 13