China to launch new lab, robotic arm to under-construction space station in July

beijingwalker · Jun 12, 2022

China to launch new lab, robotic arm to under-construction space station in July

Chinese astronauts, who docked at the space station on Sunday, will conduct several space walks to bring Tiangong closer to completion.

June 6, 2022UPDATED: June 6, 2022 13:10 IST

Chinese space station robotic arm

A day after the third batch of taikonaut (Chinese astronauts) boarded the under-construction space station, Beijing revealed plans to launch the next module to the flying laboratory. The Wentian lab module carrying a small mechanical arm will be launched in July and will enhance Tiangong's construction and operation.

Tinagong is China's response to the International Space Station, which is aimed at boosting research, science experiments, and studies in zero gravity. The space station, currently under construction, is targetted to be completed by the end of this year as China mounts a massive space programme.

According to China's People's Daily, the weight and length of the mechanical arm set to be launched to the space station in July will be about half of that of the large one, while its positioning accuracy will be five times better than the latter. The module will be installed by the three taikonauts who docked to the station on Sunday.

The Shenzhou-14 mission will test nine different formations for the assembly of the space station during which they will change the capsule position twice, and conduct five dockings and three separations and evacuations. The taikonauts will also conduct space walks using robot arms.

"They will for the first time enter the Wentian and the Mengtian space labs to unlock and test more than a dozen experimental boxes and many others," Huang Weifen, chief astronaut system designer of the China Manned Space Program said in a statement.

The space station, when completed by the year-end, will lay a significant milestone in China's three-decade-long manned space programme, first approved in 1992 and initially code-named "Project 921". It will also flag the start of permanent Chinese habitation in space.

Construction began in April last year with the launch of the first and largest of its three modules - Tianhe - the living quarters of visiting astronauts. The lab modules Wentian and Mengtian are to be launched in July and October, respectively.

Shenzhou-14 mission commander Chen Dong, 43, and teammates Liu Yang, 43, and Cai Xuzhe, 46, all from China's second cohort of astronauts, will live and work on the space station for about 180 days before returning to Earth in December with the arrival of the Shenzhou-15 crew.

A Long March-2F rocket, which was used to launch China's first crewed spaceflight on the Shenzhou-5 mission in 2003, lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert in northwest China at 10:44 a.m. (0244 GMT) with the spacecraft Shenzhou-14, or "Divine Vessel", and its three astronauts.