China speeds up construction of its space station, delivers spare parts for next mission

China is rapidly advancing its space program. Its moon mission is not only going on, preparations are also going on for Mars mission. He is preparing his space station on the lines of the International Space Station, for which a cargo ship docked with the under-construction space station on Tuesday. The Tianzhou-4 spacecraft was launched atop a Long March-7 Y5 rocket from the Wenchang Launch Base in the southern island province of Hainan. The country’s state media reported that it docked with the station about seven hours later. This cargo ship is supplying research equipment for the next crew and spare parts to maintain the station.

According to a news agency report, the crew will spend 6 months in space. Only last month, another crew returned from space after spending 6 months. Now in the next mission, the 3-member crew going to space will go there to add two modules to the Shenzhou 14 capsule. The main module of Tiangong, also known as the Heavenly Palace, was launched in April 2021. It is planned to complete its work this year.

China is the third country after the former Soviet Union and the United States to send passengers into space on its own. Tiangong is China’s third space station. Earlier in the year 2011 and 2016 also two stations have been launched. Note that China is excluded from the International Space Station because the US believes China’s space program is run by the People’s Liberation Army, the military wing of the ruling Communist Party there.

Talking about China’s space programmes, it has landed robotic rovers on the Moon and a rover on Mars last year. China’s rover has also taken samples from the moon and sent them to the earth. This country has now started preparing for its manned mission on the moon. China has also landed its first reusable spacecraft. However, even after two years, no detail or photo related to this success has been shared.

For the next 6 months, 3 passengers will remain in space under the Shenzhou 14 crew mission. When that mission is in its final stages, three more astronauts will be launched from Shenzhou 15 for six months. In this way the two crews will overlap for three to five days and for the first time there will be 6 people on board the station.