WENCHANG, Hainan, April 20 (Xinhua) — China on Thursday launched its first cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou-1, into space, a crucial step for the country in building a space station by approximately 2022.<\/p>\n
Lifted by a Long March-7 Y2 carrier rocket, Tianzhou-1 roared into the air from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in south China’s Hainan Province Thursday evening.<\/p>\n
In space, the cargo ship will dock with the orbiting Tiangong-2 space lab, provide fuel and other supplies, and conduct space experiments before falling back to Earth.<\/p>\n
China aims to build a permanent space station that is expected to orbit for at least 10 years, and the debut of the cargo ship is important as it acts as a courier to help maintain the space station.<\/p>\n
If the Tianzhou-1 mission is successful, China will become the third country besides Russia and the United States to master the technique of refueling in space.<\/p>\n
“The Tianzhou-1 mission includes the breakthrough of in-orbit refueling and other key technologies needed to build a space station, laying a foundation for future space station operations,” said Bai Mingsheng, chief designer of the cargo ship.<\/p>\n
The cargo ship is 10.6 meters long and has a maximum diameter of 3.35 meters. Its maximum takeoff weight is 13.5 tonnes, enabling it to carry over 6 tonnes of supplies.<\/p>\n
Tianzhou-1 is larger and heavier than Tiangong-2, which is 10.4 meters in length and has a maximum diameter of 3.35 meters, weighing 8.6 tonnes.<\/p>\n
Bai said that supplies loaded on the cargo spacecraft are nearly as heavy as the ship’s own weight, exceeding the loading capacity of Russian cargo ships in active service.<\/p>\n
Tianzhou-1 will dock with Tiangong-2 three times, said Bai. After the first docking, aerospace engineers will test the controlling ability of the cargo spacecraft over the two spacecraft.<\/p>\n
The second docking will be conducted from a different direction, which aims to test the ability of the cargo ship to dock with the space station from different directions.<\/p>\n
In the last docking, Tianzhou-1 will use fast-docking technology. Previously, it took China about two days to dock, while fast docking will take about six hours, according to Bai.<\/p>\n
Refueling is conducted during docking, a process that is much more complicated than refueling vehicles on land.<\/p>\n
The refueling procedure will take 29 steps and last for several days each time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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