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China’s Tianzhou 6 cargo ship lifts off on Tiangong space station mission

  • Cargo ship blasts off on Wednesday to ferry food and other supplies to Shenzhou crew in orbit
  • Vessel can take bigger payloads, reducing the number of ships that need to go up

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Final checks were completed on the combination of the Tianzhou 6 cargo spacecraft and a Long March 7 carrier rocket in south China’s Hainan Province. Photo: Xinhua
Ling Xinin Beijing
China’s Tianzhou 6 cargo ship lifted off on a resupply mission to the country’s Tiangong space station on Wednesday night – the first since the station was completed in November.

The uncrewed ship – carrying 7.4 tonnes of fuel, food and other supplies – was launched on top of a Long March 7 rocket from the Wenchang spaceport in southern China’s Hainan island at 9.22pm, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

The delivery will supply astronauts Fei Junlong, Deng Qingming, and Zhang Lu for the final weeks of their six-month stay on board Tiangong, as well as a new three-person crew for the Shenzhou 16 mission who will arrive at the station later this month.
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“The rocket and the ship are in great condition. They are ready to fly,” Zhong Wenan, chief engineer at the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre, which oversees the Wenchang site, said on Tuesday.

The team kept a close eye on weather forecasts as there had been frequent showers in the area, Zhong told state news agency Xinhua.

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“In the future, we plan to send a large refrigerator up there so that astronauts can have fresh fruit as well as frozen food,” said Wang Ran, the chief designer of the cargo spacecraft system at the China Academy of Space Technology.

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