China's very own space station is on the verge of completion.
The country's human spaceflight agency, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), recently announced that it had launched the third and final module needed to complete the Tiangong Space Station into orbit.
China's space agency rolled out the final space module to its launch pad on Oct. 26 at Wenchang Spaceport, per Space.com.
A Long March 5B rocket, which is expected to launch China's Mengtian science module to Tiangong space station, is seen before its planned launch from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre in southern China's Hainan Province on October 31, 2022.
Tiangong Space Station Completion Details
The CMSA reported that it had successfully launched the Mengtian space module to orbit aboard the country's most powerful rocket, the Long March 5B, at 7:37 AM GMT from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on Oct. 31, per Reuters.
"Mengtian" roughly translates to "Dreaming of the Heavens" in Mandarin.
The module is the third and final one needed to complete China's very own space station, the Tiangong Space Station, which China started constructing in April 2021.
Experts believe that Mengtian will spend 13 hours in flight before it joins the space station's core and experiment modules, the Tianhe and Wentian modules, respectively, per CBS News.
By then, the taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) already aboard the incomplete Tiangong Space Station will retrieve and connect Mengtian to the Tianhe space station core. This entire process is expected to be completed sometime in November.
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Once the space station is completed, China will be the only country to have a space station of its own, according to a Bloomberg article. This achievement solidifies China's foothold in space and serves as a source of pride for its citizens.
You may remember that the CMSA successfully landed Tianwen 1, China's first Mars rover, and pictures of the far side of the moon in 2019.
The country decided to construct its own space station when the US excluded it from participating in the International Space Station due to the CMSA's ties to the People's Liberation Army, China's armed forces.
Mengtian Space Module Details
The Tiangoing Space Station's Mengtian module is 58.7 ft. long and weighs around 48,500lbs. It is designed to accommodate microgravity scientific research and other scientific experimentations.
According to China's Global Times, these experiments involve fluid physics, materials science, combustion science, basic physics, and space technology experiments.
Zhang Wei, director of the Space Utilization Development Center of the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization, said that the space module would also host the world's first space-based cold atomic clock system.
Wei mentioned that these clocks would provide "the most precise time and frequency system in space" as the time it tells won't drift off incorrectly even after a hundred-million-year period.
The space module also has a payload airlock to take and install science payloads on an experiment platform on its exterior, per a Space.com article.
When installed, the Tiangong Space Station will weigh about 66 tons - a fraction of the ISS' weight of around 463 tons, per NASA.
The space station is designed to last for at least 10 to 15 years and could be the only one in space if the ISS adheres to its 30-year plan.
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