China will send new materials and more propellants to its regional station.
The Tianzhou 7 robot-sending spacecraft recently arrived at the Wenchang Coastal Satellite Launch Center in China, according to Chinese state media. The spacecraft will go through final meetings and tests before launching on a Long March 7 rocket in early 2024.
Tianzhou 7 will supply materials to the Shenzhou 17 astronauts currently aboard the Tiangong space station, as well as extravehicular activity suits, spare parts for repairs, and propellant to refuel Tiangong.
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The spacecraft will also bring payloads and samples for experiments to the station. In addition, the shipment will be used to remove debris created at Tiangong when the spacecraft re-enters Earth’s atmosphere at the end of its mission.
Tianzhou 7 is just one of two shipping missions China plans to launch in 2024; Tianzhou 8 will be released about 8 months after Tianzhou 7. Each shipment will dock at the aft port of Tiangong.
Like Tianzhou 6, unveiled in May this year, the Tianzhou 7 and Tianzhou 8 spacecraft are upgraded versions of previous Tianzhou vehicles. The upgraded craft carries up to 31,000 pounds (14,000 kilograms) to low Earth orbit, while Tianzhou five and earlier versions had a capacity of 29,800 pounds (13,500 kg).
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China will launch the Shenzhou 18 and Shenzhou 19 manned missions to Tiangong in 2024, along with the two planned shipping flights. The logos of the 4 missions were recently decided through the China Manned Space Flight Agency after a public competition.
China completed the three-module Tiangong area station in 2022. It aims to have a permanent team for at least a decade and also plans to expand Tiangong with new modules.
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Andrew is a freelance local journalist who focuses on reporting on China’s developing space sector. He started writing for Space. com in 2019 and writes for SpaceNews, IEEE Spectrum, National Geographic, Sky.
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