The construction of China's own space station is underway, with the core module 
Tianhe, which means "heavenly harmony," sent into space Thursday, kicking off a 
series of key launch missions that aim to complete the construction of the 
station by the end of 2022. 

Tianhe was carried into space by a Long March-5B Y2 carrier rocket from the 
Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the coast of south China's Hainan Province. 
It is the first of 11 missions to build and supply the space station.

Tianhe will act as the foundational module for China's first space station in 
low-Earth orbit named Tiangong, which means "heavenly palace" in Chinese. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a congratulatory message Thursday that the 
successful launch of the core module Tianhe means that China's space station 
construction has entered the full implementation stage, which lays a solid 
foundation for follow-up tasks.

Building a space station and national space laboratory is an important goal of 
the three-step strategy of China's manned space program, and an important 
leading project to boost the country's strength in science and technology, as 
well as in space, Xi said in the message. 

He called on all members who participated in the mission to be self-reliant and 
innovative, to win the overall victory of the space station construction 
mission, and to make new and greater contributions to the comprehensive 
construction of a modern socialist country. 

An open platform 

China's new space station will not just be for Chinese scientists. Foreign 
astronauts and global cooperation on scientific experiments are most welcome in 
China's space station, Hao Chun, the director of China Manned Space Engineering 
Office, said in an exclusive interview with CGTN. 

"China and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs carried out 
cooperation on applications concerning the use of China's space station. We 
signed an agreement," said Hao.

So far, a total of nine projects proposed by 17 countries including France, 
Germany and Italy have been selected for the first round of experiments to be 
conducted in the new space lab. 

"In the future, there will surely be foreign astronauts participating in 
China's space flight, working and living on our space station. In addition, 
some foreign astronauts are already participating in Chinese flights and are 
already learning Chinese," said the director. 

Build an aerospace power

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Xi, 
also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, has personally directed 
the implementation of major aerospace projects, and promoted China's steady 
progress to become an aerospace power.

"Exploring the vast universe, developing space programs and becoming an 
aerospace power have always been the dream we've been striving for," Xi said in 
an instruction on China's first Space Day on April 24, 2016.

In 2020, China's space industry has produced remarkable achievements: China 
successfully put into orbit its final Beidou satellite on June 23; an unmanned 
probe to Mars was sent into space on July 23; an uncrewed mission called 
Chang'e-5 with the aim of collecting lunar material was launched on November 24 
and China successfully landed the Chang'e-5 probe on the moon's surface on 
December 1.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-04-29/Tianhe-lifts-off-China-s-space-station-ambition--ZR9lfbX2iA/index.html


Source: CGTN