Chinese astronauts enter Tiangong Space Station

Context

Recently, three Chinese astronauts floated into the country’s new Tiangong space station for a three-month mission. 

About

• The trio blasted off in a Long March-2F rocket at 0814 IMT from the Jiuquan launch centre in north-western China’s Gobi desert.
• The team is tasked with “completing in-orbit assembly and construction of the space station”, as well as “commissioning of equipment” and conducting scientific experiments.
• The spacecraft docked at the Tiangong station after about “seven hours of flight”.
• China’s heavily promoted space programme has already seen the nation land a rover on Mars and send probes to the Moon. 

About Tiangong Space Station

• Tiangong means “Heavenly Palace”.
• It was 10.4 metres long and 3.35 metres wide at its widest point, and weighed 8.6 metric tonnes.
• It was launched on September 15, 2016 and, in late 2016, hosted two Chinese astronauts for 30 days in what was China’s longest manned space mission so far.
• The recently decommissioned space lab followed the Tiangong-1, China’s first space station, which crashed into the southern Pacific Ocean on April 1, 2018 after Chinese scientists lost control of the spacecraft.
• China had launched Tiangong-1 in 2011 as a proof-of-concept of technologies for future stations.
• The Tiangong will be fully operational by the end of 2022.

Key-Features

• The significant feature of Tiangong is its two robotic arms.
• The US has previously expressed concern over its ability to grab objects including satellites from space.
• The 10-meter-long arm was in action previously seen in action successfully grabbing and moving a 20 tonne Tianzhou-2 cargo ship in a test.
• One of the noteworthy tasks for the Shenzhou-14 crew is to test and operate the large and small.
• The small arm is quite flexible and can perform operations with greater precision.