Earlier today, China sent out the third and final unit that makes up the new Tiangong (“Palace in the Sky”) space station. The unit was dispatched with a powerful Chinese Long March 5B missile and you can check what it looked like above.
The latest module is called Mengtian (“Dreaming of the Heavens”) and will be paired with the main module Tianhe (“Harmony of the Heavens”), which was launched into Earth orbit in 2021. Earlier this year, China launched the second module to Tiangong which is called Wentian (“Search for the Heavens”). Both the Wentian and the 23-ton Mengtian unit were designed for research work.
China estimates that Tiangong will be operating at full capacity by the end of this year. The space station is scheduled to be about 10 years old. During that time, China plans to conduct about a thousand scientific experiments aboard the Tiangong.
As with previous unit launches to Tiangong, China does not appear to have taken into account that parts of the Long March 5B rocket will fall to Earth in an uncontrolled manner. So you should probably expect a number of articles about it as it becomes relevant.
@reuters.com
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