Around 2018, China is going to launch a core module of its first space station. Xinhua news agency revealed this news and also said that it is also being planned to have permanent manned space station around 22.
China stresses that the space programme is important for Beijing with president Xi Jinping saying the country to establish itself as a space power apart from civilian ambitions, which Beijing has tested it as anti-satellite missiles.
“The “core module” for the space station would be called the “Tianhe-1”, the Chinese word for galaxy or Milky Way, Wang Zhongyang, spokesman for the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp,” told Xinhua.
“Two space labs will be launched later and dock with the core module, Tianhe-1. The construction of the space station is expected to finish in 2022,” he said. He gave no details of what the core module consists.
“If the International Space Station, which has extended its service, is retired by 2024, China’s new space station will be the only operational one in outer space,” Wang said. “Be on a separate space unit and share orbit alongside the space station”, he added.
Xinhua reported China is also working on its own reusable rocket technologies and already built a prototype model.
“The experiment has laid solid foundation for the realisation of reusable rockets in the country,” an unnamed source told Xinhua.