The component was sent aboard the Long March-5B Y4 carrier rocket
China launched the final component — the Mengtian module — of its permanent space station October 31, 2022 from Hainan, the country’s southernmost island province, according to national news agency Xinhua.
#Breaking: Carrying #Mengtian– the third & final part of its 3-module home-developed space station, China's #LongMarch5B took off from Wenchang Space Launch Site. Mengtian will be the last piece before China completes the #spacestation assembly. https://t.co/xedOKmn7Ux pic.twitter.com/FDSkuEVSsl
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) October 31, 2022
Mengtian (literal meaning: Dreaming of the Heaven) was sent to the earth’s lower orbit, over 380 kilometres above the surface, aboard the Long March-5B Y4 carrier rocket. After docking on to the core module Tianhe within hours of lift-off, it will finish the T-shaped structure of the space station.
The rendezvous and docking of Mengtian will be monitored by the three Chinese astronauts aboard the space station.
Blastoff!!! Long March 5B with the 23t #Mengtian Laboratory Module lifted off from Wenchang! T0 at 07:37:23 UTC https://t.co/LzS1oPUPf1 pic.twitter.com/HRozNkfm19
— China 'N Asia Spaceflight (@CNSpaceflight) October 31, 2022
Mengtian is the second of the two modules that will house science labs for carrying out experiments. The other lab module Wentian was sent in July this year. Together, they will complete the two arms of China’s space station Tiangong, which means ‘Palace in the Sky’.
The United States banned its National Aeronautics and Space Administration from sharing data with China and thereby excluding the Chinese scientists from the International Space Station. Last year, the country began the process of building its own space station and once finished, will be the third country in the world to do so.
Mengtian will host workstations for Chinese astronauts and those from “friendly” countries. Over a 1,000 experiments will be conducted on the space station in the next 10 years.
Experiments in the Mengtian wing will be mostly on the fields of microgravity scientific studies as well as frontier scientific projects covering fluid physics, combustion and materials science and space technologies, according to English-language Chinese newspaper Global Times.
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