Since it has become apparent that China intends to have a permanent manned space station by 2022, the state news agency Xinhua disclosed that the country will be launching its second space laboratory in the third quarter of this year – Reuters reports.
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People look at a model of the Shenzhou-10 manned spacecraft docked with the Tiangong-1 space module during an exhibition in Tianjin, north China.
China also plans to launch Shenzhou 11 spacecraft, which will carry two astronauts on board, in the fourth quarter of this year to dock with Tiangong 2, the report said.
China has been barred from joining the International Space Station (ISS), now the world’s only operational space station, due to policy of the United States of America. In his remarks, Xi made an explicit link between the “China Dream” – his signature slogan, calling for the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” – and the “space dream.” Xi said that China’s space program was part of the overall “China Dream”, and pledge that “Chinese people will take bigger strides to explore further into space”.
According to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the main contractor for the Chinese space program, the country will perform over 20 space missions across 2016, including the manned Shenzhou-11 and the maiden flights of the next-generation Long March 5 and Long March 7 launch vehicles.
In another step toward building its own space station to rival Russia’s now-defunct Mir, China on Sunday announced that it will send its second space lab into orbit later this year.
“By around 2020, the construction of the country’s first orbiting space station should be completed”, the spokesperson told Xinhua.
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The first space lab, Tiangong 1, launched in 2011, had been working well, Xinhua said.
