Off the wire
• 1st LD: Xi Jinping elected delegate to 19th CPC National Congress  • 1st Ld-Writethru: Former senior Hebei official stands trial for bribery  • Former senior Taiwan affairs official sentenced to 15 years for graft  • Wal-Mart to open 40 new stores in south China's Guangdong  • Palestinian leadership still ready to meet Netanyahu: FM  • China, Iran to sign contract on Arak heavy water reactor  • Chinese court accepts high-profile telecom fraud case  • Weather forecast for world cities -- April 20  • Xinhua Insight: China's organ transplantation making progress  • Maltese citizenship applications by British nationals double since Brexit referendum  
You are here: 　 Home

1st LD: China launches first cargo spacecraft Tianzhou-1

Xinhua, April 20, 2017 Adjust font size:

China on Thursday evening launched its first cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou-1, into space, a crucial step for the country in building a space station by approximately 2022.

Lifted by a Long March-7 Y2 carrier rocket, Tianzhou-1 roared into the air from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in south China's Hainan Province.

In space, the cargo ship will dock with the orbiting Tiangong-2 space lab, provide fuel and other supplies, and conduct space experiments before falling back to Earth.

China aims to build a permanent space station that is expected to orbit for at least 10 years, and the debut of the cargo ship is important as it acts as a courier to help maintain the space station.

Without a cargo transportation system, the station would run out of power and basic necessities, causing it to return to Earth before the designated time. Endi