China yesterday launched the second of three modules required to complete its new space station, state media reported, the latest step in Beijing’s ambitious space program.
The uncrewed craft, named Wentian, was propelled by a Long March 5B rocket at 2:22pm from the Wenchang launch site on the island of Hainan.
Beijing in April last year launched the central module of its space station Tiangong, which means “heavenly palace.”
Photo: Reuters
Almost 18m long and weighing 22 tonnes, the new module has three sleeping areas and a laboratory for scientific experiments.
It will dock with the existing module in space, a challenging operation that experts said would require several high-precision manipulations and use of a robotic arm.
“This is the first time China has docked such large vehicles together, which is a delicate operation,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
He said until the next module arrives, the space station will have a “rather unusual L-shape,” which requires a substantial amount of power to keep stable.
“These are all technical challenges that the USSR pioneered with the Mir station in the late 1980s, but it’s new to China,” he said. “But it will result in a much more capable station, with the space and power to carry out more scientific experiments.”
Wentian will also serve as a backup platform to control the space station in the event of a failure. The third and final module is scheduled to dock in October, and Tiangong — which should have a lifespan of at least 10 years — is expected to become fully operational by the end of the year.
Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the country’s plans for its heavily promoted “space dream” have been put into overdrive.
China has made large strides in catching up with the US and Russia, where astronauts and cosmonauts have decades of experience in space exploration.
The Chinese space station will be completed in 18 months, the fastest in history for a modular space station, space technology analyst Chen Lan (陳藍) said, adding that Mir and the International Space Station (ISS) took 10 and 12 years respectively.
China’s space program has already landed a rover on Mars and sent probes to the moon.
In addition to a space station, Beijing is planning to build a base on the moon and send humans there by 2030.
China has been excluded from the International Space Station since 2011, when the US banned NASA from engaging with the country.
While China does not plan to use its space station for global cooperation on the scale of the ISS, Beijing has said it is open to foreign collaboration.
Pins hidden in her shoes, head forced down a toilet, kicked in the stomach: South Korean hairdresser Pyo Ye-rim suffered a litany of abuse from school bullies, but now she is speaking out. The 26-year-old is part of a phenomenon sweeping South Korea known as “Hakpok #MeToo,” where people who were bullied publicly name and shame the perpetrators of school violence — “hakpok” in Korean — decades after the alleged crimes. Made famous globally by Netflix’s gory revenge series The Glory, the movement has ensnared everyone from K-pop stars to baseball players and accusations — often anonymous — can be career-ending, with
One of Australia’s two active volcanoes on an island near Antarctica — known as Big Ben — has been spotted by satellite spewing lava. The lava flow on the uninhabited Heard Island, about 4,100km southwest of Perth and 1,500km north of Antarctica, is part of an ongoing eruption that was first noted more than a decade ago. The image was caught by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite on Thursday, and is a composite of an optical picture and an infrared image. The lava is seen flowing down the side of Big Ben from near the summit, known as Mawson Peak.
SYMBOLIC: The bill sponsored by a cross-party group of lawmakers was hailed as a ‘historic moment’ in the fight for marriage equality, but is unlikely to pass Lawmakers in South Korea have proposed the country’s first same-sex marriage bill, in a move hailed by civic groups as a defining moment in the fight for equality. The marriage equality bill, proposed by South Korean lawmaker Jang Hye-yeong of the minor opposition Justice Party and co-sponsored by 12 lawmakers across all the main parties, seeks to amend the country’s civil code to allow same-sex marriage. The bill is unlikely to pass, but forms part of a trio of bills expected to increase pressure on the government to expand the idea of family beyond traditional criteria. The two other bills relate to
READY FOR ACTION: Military, police, firefighters and volunteers were standing by for search-and-rescue operations, with an official saying they ‘cannot afford not to prepare’ Philippine officials yesterday began evacuating thousands of people, shut down schools and offices and imposed a no-sail ban as Typhoon Mawar approached the country’s northern provinces a week after battering the US territory of Guam. The typhoon was packing maximum sustained winds of 155kpm and gusts of up to 190kph, but was forecast to spare the mountainous region a direct hit. Current projections show the typhoon veering northeast toward Taiwan or southern Japan. Although it is expected to slow down considerably, authorities warned of dangerous tidal surges, flash floods and landslides as it blows past the northernmost province of Batanes from today