China to send cargo spacecraft to Tiangong station, followed by new crew

Final testing is under way on Tianzhou-3 and carrier rocket to transport supplies next month, source says
Three more astronauts are to be launched into orbit in October on the Shenzhou-13, which will bring back the current crew

China's space programme

William Zheng

Published: 6:00am, 17 Aug 2021

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China plans to send a cargo spacecraft to dock at its new space station next month, to be followed by the Shenzhou-13 in October, which will take three astronauts into orbit and return with the current crew, according to a source.

The person familiar with the space programme on Monday said engineers at the Wenchang launch site in Hainan province were carrying out final testing on the Tianzhou-3 cargo spacecraft and Long March-7 Y4 rocket in preparation for the mid-September launch.

He said the Shenzhou-13 spacecraft and its carrier rocket had meanwhile been transported to the Jiuquan launch centre in the Gobi Desert, Inner Mongolia, for final preparations for its mission.

The cargo spacecraft will carry supplies to the Tiangong space station – the name means “heavenly palace” – whose core module was sent into orbit in April. Its crew of three have been at the space station since June, and will be brought home by the Shenzhou-13 in October.

These are just the third and fourth of 11 planned missions to finish building the space station, a task expected to be completed next year.

05:06

How China’s space programme went from launching satellites to building its own space station

The Tianzhou-3 cargo spacecraft and its carrier rocket arrived at the launch site in southern China on Monday, according to state news agency Xinhua.

The China Manned Space Engineering Office said that once the space station was fully operational it would become “the norm” for launch preparations to be under way at both sites – Wenchang and Jiuquan – at the same time, the report said.

The office noted that the Wenchang site was suited to heavier payloads. “The facilities and equipment at both launch sites are in good condition and preparatory work on all systems involved in the missions are proceeding in an orderly manner,” it said.

03:22

Chinese astronauts carry out country’s second spacewalk

The first three astronauts sent to the Tiangong space station – commander Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo – blasted off on June 17 from Jiuquan.

Liu and Tang carried out the country’s second spacewalk on July 4, working for seven hours outside the space station module – installing equipment for future missions and other tasks – and putting new spacesuits to the test.

Two more modules are expected to be launched into orbit next year, named Wentian and Mentian. They will be used to carry out experiments in areas ranging from astronomy to space medicine, biotechnology, microgravity fluid physics and space technology. The space station is expected to operate for at least 10 years.

China has invested heavily in its space programme and in May became the second country to put a functional rover on Mars, two years after landing its first spacecraft on the far side of the moon.

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