China has launched one of 2 lab modules to enter the space station

July 26, 2022: -On Sunday, China launched one of two laboratory modules to complete its permanent orbiting space station.

The Wentian has launched from tropical Hainan Island with a massive crowd of amateur photographers and space enthusiasts witnessing. Designed for science and biology experiments, the official Xinhua News Agency says that the module lifted off on the Long March 5B remote three rockets and spent roughly eight minutes in flight before it entered orbit.

A second lab module, known as the Mengtian, is still pending to be launched in October, and both will be joining the Tiangong space station. Three astronauts are living in the core module and will manage the arrival and docking of the lab.

The launch is the third from the Chinese space station that has completed its construction phase. It was started by the Tianzhou-class cargo spacecraft and the Shenzhou-14 crewed spacecraft.

The space program of China is carried out by the ruling Communist Party’s military branch, the People’s Liberation Army, which prompts the U.S. to exclude it from the International Space Station. As a result, China had to work on its own in its Tiangong space station program, which built and left two experimental stations before embarking on the latest iteration.

According to the state-owned Global Times, the 23-ton lab module is heavier than any other single-module spacecraft currently in space.

China’s space program, which launched its first astronaut into orbit in 2003, makes it the third country to do so on its own, following the former Soviet Union and the U.S.