Space missions bring down-to-earth benefits

Massive space station

Besides their increased wealth, Chen and his fellow Longlou residents have been witness to a host of ambitious space programs, including the country's permanent space station project, that have made China a rising space power.

Both of the two major components comprising the current Tiangong space station, now traveling in an orbit 400 kilometers above Earth, were carried into space by a Long March 5B heavy-lift rocket launched from the Wenchang center.

The first and most important part of the Tiangong station－the Tianhe core module－was launched in April 2021, marking the beginning of a historic project that had been advocated by Chinese scientists since the 1980s.

Tianhe is 16.6 meters long and has a diameter of 4.2 meters. The craft's weight, at 22.5 metric tons, is equal to the combined weight of 15 standard-size automobiles.

The module is bigger and heavier than any other Chinese spacecraft launched before it.

Inside the craft are about 50 cubic meters for astronauts to live and work in－much bigger than the available area of previous Chinese manned spacecraft. There are separate quarters for working, sleeping, personal hygiene, dining, healthcare and exercise. The module also has appliances such as an air conditioner and a microwave oven, refrigerator, water dispenser and treadmill.

In late July, Tiangong's first lab module, named Wentian, was launched to connect with the Tianhe.

With a weight of 23 tons and length of 17.9 meters, Wentian is currently the largest and heaviest spacecraft that China has ever built, and is also the world's heaviest self-propelled spaceship in service.

Inside the gigantic lab are eight scientific cabinets. They are mainly used to serve biological and life science studies and can support research on the growth, aging and genetic traits of plants, animals and microbes in the space environment.

Wentian also carries 22 extravehicular payload adapters capable of carrying scientific equipment needed for experiments that require exposure to the space environment, cosmic rays, vacuum and solar winds.

So far, three groups of Chinese astronauts have lived and worked inside the Tiangong space station, which now consists of the Tianhe module, the Wentian lab, the Shenzhou XIV spacecraft and the Tianzhou 4 cargo ship.

The current crew－the three members of the Shenzhou XIV mission－have spent nearly four months in the station and have carried out two spacewalks. They are scheduled to continue flying with the station until early December, when the Shenzhou XV crew will take over.

The Mengtian space lab, Tiangong's second lab component, is scheduled to be launched from Wenchang in October.

Scientific equipment onboard that component will be used for microgravity studies and to carry out experiments in fluid physics, materials science, combustion science and fundamental physics, according to mission planners.

Once Mengtian is connected to Tiangong, the station will be T-shaped, and astronauts will have as much as 110 cubic meters of usable space.

Serving as a national space-based platform for science and technology, Tiangong is expected to operate in orbit for around 15 years and will be open to foreign astronauts in the near future, according to the China Manned Space Agency.