another space station set it's foot in space- this time it's our neighbour china
With the retirement of NASA’s space shuttles and Russia announcing plans to eventually sink the International Space Station, 2011 hasn’t exactly shaped up to be a banner year for space exploration. But don’t tell that to China, where the feeling is far from mutual. On 29th september evening, the unmanned Tiangong-1 space lab launched into orbit aboard a Chinese Long March 2F rocket, a monumental milestone for an ascending superpower embarking on it’s own golden age of space exploration. The move is part of the China National Space Administration’s bold vision to put into operation a 60-ton space station in orbit by 2020. In the next phase, officials will launch in 2013 the Tiangong-2, a module equipped to provide three astronauts with a livable environment for about 20 days. Tiangong-3, scheduled for 2015, will enable to the astronauts to stay on-board for about twice as long, during which time they’ll conduct experiments to test regenerative life-support technology and other space ...