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March 12, 2019
China Space Station
The China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) announced Monday that the core module of the country's space station, the Long March-5B carrier rocket and its payloads will be sent to the launch site in the second half of this year, to make preparations for the space station missions.
China is scheduled to complete the construction of the space station around 2022. It will be the country's space lab in long-term stable in-orbit operation.
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.
Programs to select and train astronauts are underway.
China Space Station to be completed in 2022
Video above: China Space Station is expected to be completed in 2022. In 2019, a Long March-5B rocket is scheduled to launch the first module, the Tianhe-1 core module. Zhang Bainan, chief engineer, China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), explains the progress so far and the path forward. Video Credits: China Central Television (CCTV)/SciNews.
China is committed to making the country's space station an international platform for scientific and technological cooperation, according to the CMSEO.
In June this year, the CMSEO will work with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs to complete the application selection of China's space station and launch a number of cooperation projects.
China's Tiangong-2 space lab, launched on Sept. 15, 2016, is conducting in-orbit tests and will de-orbit after July this year.
Related links:
CASC Press Release: http://english.spacechina.com/n16421/n17212/c2509363/content.html
For more information about China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), visit: http://english.spacechina.com/n16421/index.html
Image, Video (mentioned), Text, Credit: CASC.
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