China to launch prototype space station next week
SEP 21, 2011
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.025592
MSNBC : The Tiangong 1, or “Heavenly Palace,” is an eight-ton unmanned space lab that will function as a test bed for China’s developing space technologies. The main task of the lab will be to experiment with rendezvous and docking between spacecraft; it’s scheduled to rendezvous and dock with an unmanned Shenzhou 8 spacecraft a few weeks after launch. China’s space program has been compared, in its level of technological development, to that of NASA’s Gemini program, which launched 10 manned flights between 1965 and 1966. Tiangong 1 will launch from a site in the Gobi Desert around September 27–30.
© 2011 American Institute of Physics
