Beijing: Three Chinese astronauts aboard the country’s space station, currently under construction, successfully entered the laboratory module on Monday, a day after the space lab was launched, official media reported. China on Sunday launched its space laboratory called Ventian, which is sending the country’s largest spacecraft ever into Earth orbit to be part of the Tiangong space station that is currently under construction. The Ventian module docked with the space station’s front port in the early hours of Monday after entering the planned orbit.
It is the first time that China’s two 20-tonne-scale spacecraft have conducted an in-orbit rendezvous and docking, and it is also the first time that astronauts will rendezvous and dock in space during the astronauts’ stay in the space station. The docking was done, the China Manned Space Agency, (CMSA) told official media. After docking, three astronauts who were building the space station entered the laboratory, Xinhua news agency reported.
Mission planners said that in the coming weeks, the Ventian will be moved by a robotic instrument from a forward docking port to a lateral port, where it will remain and be ready for long-term operations. The new lab module will serve as a backup to the core module and a powerful scientific experiment platform, China Daily reported.
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The laboratory, which is the size of a subway car, is the heaviest single-cabin active spacecraft in orbit, according to Liu Gang, deputy chief designer of the space station system for China’s manned space program. The Xinhua report states that the Ventian module consists of a work cabin, an airlock cabin and a resource cabin.
The construction of China’s Tiangong space station is expected to be completed this year. It will then evolve from a single-module structure into a National Space Laboratory with three modules – the core module called Tianhe, and the laboratory module called Ventian and Mengtian.
The Tianhe module was launched in April 2021, and the Mengtian module is scheduled to be launched in October this year. Afterwards, the Ventian module will rendezvous and dock in conjunction with the space station, according to prescribed procedures.
The three astronauts sent into orbit on June 5 will help assemble the module on their six-month space mission. While in orbit, they will also visit the Tianzhou-5 cargo craft and Shenzhou-15 crew spaceship dock with the core module. Then, they will live and work with the next batch of astronauts before returning to Earth.
Once ready, China’s low-flying space station will be the only country to have a space station. Russia’s International Space Station (ISS) is a collaborative project of several countries. The China Space Station (CSS) is also expected to be a competitor to the Russian-built ISS.
Observers say that CSS could become the only space station to remain in orbit in the coming years after the ISS is retired. An important feature of China’s under-construction space station is its two robotic arms, particularly long over which the US has previously expressed concerns over its ability to grab objects, including satellites, from space. According to China’s Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO), the 10-metre-long arm successfully captured and transferred the 20-ton Tianzhou-2 cargo ship in a first test.