China hints challenging SpaceX with surprise space station launch
Last updated on: 07 March,2019 09:30 am
The space station will be launched into space by China's new Long March-5B rocket.
(Web Desk) - China has hinted that its new space station could launch into orbit later this year, sooner than previously thought, on a commercial-grade rocket that is designed to be more affordable than private rocket launch companies such as SpaceX.
Xinhua News Agency, the official state-run press agency of the People’s Republic of China, reported that the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) will send the core module of the now-in-development Chinese Space Station (CSS) to the launch site at Wenchang Space Launch Center in the second half of this year to prepare for the space station missions.
The CSS had been expected to launch during 2020.
The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT) has confirmed that it would test the new Long March-5B heavy-lift rocket in the first half of 2019, making the launch of the CSS later in 2019 much more likely. China’s current space station, Tiangong-2 space lab, was launched in 2016 and is due to be de-orbited in the second half of 2019.
However, the CSS is designed to last for at least a decade.
The space station will have a core module and experiment modules, which are under development and will be launched into space by the Long March-5B.
Joint exercises will be carried out in the Wenchang Space Launch Center at the end of 2019 for the maiden flight of the Long March-5B.
Will the CSS be for Chinese astronauts only?
No. Last year the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and China’s Manned Space Agency (CMSA) invited applications from any country to conduct experiments on-board the CSS from 2022 onwards. "China is committed to making the country’s space station an international platform for scientific and technological cooperation, according to the CMSEO," reports the Xinhua News Agency.
Meanwhile, for the initial missions, astronauts are currently being recruited and trained, with drills and tests scheduled for the second half of 2019.