China closer to its goal to deliver and build a permanent space station for human habitation by 2022.
China will launch a manned spacecraft “Shenzhou-11” (Shenzhou-11) to its orbiting space laboratory “Tiangong-2” (Tiangong-2) 17 Oct.
“The launch of the carrier rocket Long March-2 is scheduled for 02:30 on 17 October from the Baikonur Jiuquan in the northwestern province of Gansu China. Currently, the spacecraft set on the launch pad, technical services has begun filling the rocket with fuel,” – said in the message. It is noted that the crew will consist of two cosmonauts: 50-year-old commander Jing HIPAA and Chen Dong.
They have within two days after starting to carry out the mission, the docking module, the space laboratory “Tiangong-2”, where they will spend 30 days. As underlined by the Agency, this record will stay specialists manned space flight of China for the entire history of the national cosmonautics.
Crew members also will be in orbit for a number of scientific experiments. The Agency notes that in this way China is approaching its target to deliver and build a permanent space station for human habitation by 2022. In mid-September, China launched the space lab “Tiangong-2”. On its Board is the world’s largest high-sensitivity gamma-ray detector, which are developed jointly by Chinese and European engineers. All on Board the module has 14 different types of scientific equipment.
“The tiangong-2” is the second Chinese space station, adapted for living and working people. Previously such technology was only the Soviet Union, Russia and the United States. The module “Tiangong-1” was launched in 2011, but in March, 2016 station exhausted their operating resource and the data from the station stopped coming.
