Story at a glance
- China is planning to build a permanent space station for astronauts to stay long term and carry out experiments.
- The first module of the station was launched into space and will be followed by 11 more missions.
- The country is working with the United Nations and has invited other countries to send their astronauts to the station.
Tianhe, or Harmony of Heavens, is headed into space after China launched the first of 11 missions to build Tiangong, or Heavenly Palace, the nation’s first permanent space station for astronauts.
China’s National Space Administration announced the successful launch of the core module of its station, “the biggest and heaviest spacecraft China has ever constructed,” about 400 kilometers (or nearly 250 miles) above the Earth in a low orbit.
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This core module will be home to life-support, control operations and resources — and, if all goes according to plan, up to six astronauts who will live in, control and experiment from the station.
“By now, 17 foreign nations have confirmed their participation in nine scientific tasks on our station and related work is proceeding well,” Hao Chun, director of the China Manned Space Agency, said in a release, referring to the agency’s agreements with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs on space station cooperation. “Next, we will continue working with the UNOOSA to solicit proposals for future scientific collaborations.”
Press release: United Nations and China invite applications to conduct experiments on-board China’s Space Station.https://t.co/dJJ1CMT95k pic.twitter.com/HrWRDIsBYP
— UNOOSA (@UNOOSA) May 29, 2018
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Astronauts on the Shenzhou XII and XIII missions and two cargo ships are scheduled to follow in a few months to prepare the module for docking the next part of the station next year. Two other modules — Wentian, or “Quest for the Heavens,” and Mengtian, or “Dreaming of the Heavens” — will act as space labs, which Chun said scientists would be able to use for “mutation breeding, producing special medicines and creating new materials.”
The country’s space program, which last year became the third to independently put an astronaut into space, has grown rapidly in recent years and most recently successfully sent a spacecraft to orbit Mars.
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