After the stowage of its third part, the Chinese station Tiangong is now functional, allowing China to maintain a long -term human presence in space.
Le Monde
The third and last module of the Chinese space station Tiangong hung on Tuesday 1 er November, after its successful launch on Monday, which should allow it to be fully operational, in the Cadre of the ambitious China program in space.
The Chinese desire to build a space station has been partly fed by the American refusal to accept Chinese in the program of the International Space Station (ISS), collaboration between the United States, Russia, Canada , Europe and Japan.
Baptized Mengtian (“Dream of heaven”), the module was launched at 3:27 p.m. (08:27 am in Paris) by a 5b long rocket from Hainan Tropical Island, according to CCTV public television. From a beach neighboring the Wenchang launch center, amateur photographers and space enthusiasts have immortalized the event. 2> “Celeste Palace”
“The Mengtian experimental module entered precisely on the predefined orbit,” said a mission official, Deng Hongqin a few minutes later. “I declare that this launch is a total success,” said Deng, surrounded by enthusiastic colleagues in the control room.
About thirteen hours later, at the little hours of Tuesday, in Chinese hour, Mengtian hung on to Tiangong, reported the China New Statical news agency, citing the Chinese space agency. Mengtian is the third and last major element of the Tiangong space station (“celestial palace”) in t.
Similar in size to the late Russo-Soviet Mir station, it should have a lifespan of at least ten years. It should allow China to maintain a long -term human presence in space. Its assembly required a total of eleven missions.
The last this Monday made it possible to transport advanced scientific equipment. “The first cold atomic clock” was notably sent to space, welcomed the official China New agency. The system must eventually allow to have a more precise time measurement. 2>
Filled delay
Since June, three astronauts, including a woman, have been in the Chinese space station, for a mission of about six months. Even if China does not provide for international cooperation for its station, Beijing has assured that it is open to foreign collaboration. The Asian giant has been investing for several decades for several billions of euros in its space program for several decades, which has enabled it to fill most of its delay against the Americans and the Russians.
The launch of Monday is “very important”, underlined to the agency France-Presse (AFP) Chen Lan, site analyst go-taikonauts.com , because it “concludes the space plan over thirty years of China, started in 1992”. “With the completion of its space station, China now plays on equal arms with the United States, Russia and Europe in space, which also gives it significant political influence,” he Added.
China had sent her first astronaut in space in 2003. She then laid in 2019 a machine on the hidden side of the moon, a world premiere. In 2020, the country had brought back moon samples and finalized Beidou, its satellite navigation system – rival of American GPS. The following year, he had a little robot landed on Mars. China plans to send men to the Moon by 2030.