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Tiangong-2 (Chinese: 天宫二号; pinyin: Tiāngōng èrhào; lit. 'Heavenly Palace 2') is a Chinese space laboratory and part of the Project 921-2space station program. Tiangong-2 was launched on 15 September 2016, 22:04:09 (UTC+8).
Tiangong-2 is neither designed nor planned to be a permanent orbital station; rather, it is intended as a testbed for key technologies that will be used in China's large modular space station, which is planned for launch in 2023.
History
The China Manned Space Engineering Office published a brief description of Tiangong-2 and its successor Tiangong-3 in 2008, indicating that at least two manned spaceships would be launched to dock with Tiangong-2.
Tiangong-2 was originally expected to be launched by the China National Space Agency by 2015 to replace the prototype module Tiangong-1, which was launched in September 2011. In March 2011, Chinese officials stated that Tiangong-2 was scheduled to be launched by 2015, following the deorbit of Tiangong-1. An unmanned cargo spacecraft will dock with the station, allowing for resupply.
In September 2014, its launch was pushed to September 2016. Plans for visits in October 2016 by the manned mission Shenzhou 11 and the unmanned resupply craft Tianzhou were made public. The station was successfully launched from Jiuquan aboard a Long March 2F rocket on 15 September 2016.
Dimensions
The dimensions of Tiangong-2 are:
Crew size: 2, with 30 days of life support resources. The crew (from Shenzhou 11, October 2016) will consist of two astronauts.
Salyut programme – a Soviet space station with a similar monolithic design
References
^ Branigan, Tania; Sample, Ian (26 April 2011). "China unveils rival to International Space Station". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 27 April 2011. China often chooses poetic names for its space projects, such as Chang'e – after the moon goddess – for its lunar probes; its rocket series, however, is named Long March, in tribute to communist history. The space station project is currently referred to as Tiangong, or "heavenly palace".
^
David, Leonard (11 March 2011). "China Details Ambitious Space Station Goals". Space.com. Retrieved 9 March 2011. China is ready to carry out a multiphase construction program that leads to the large space station around 2020. As a prelude to building that facility, China is set to loft the Tiangong-1 module this year as a platform to help master key rendezvous and docking technologies.
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ). Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).
A display model of Tiangong-2 docked to the Shenzhou spacecraft.
