Wwentian lab module of China's Tiangong Space Station docks with Tianhe core module

The simulation image captured at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center on July 25, 2022 shows that the Wentian lab module has successfully docked with the front port of the Tianhe core module combination. The GUO ZHONGZHENG XINHUA - The Wentian lab module of China's Tiangong space station was repositioned to dock with a radial port on the station's Tianhe core module on Friday afternoon, which was a key step in Tiangong's in-orbit assembly, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

In a news release, the agency said that Wentian was moved from the axial port of Tianhe to a radial port of the core module during the hour-long operation that ended at 12: 44 pm. The maneuver was carried out with cooperation between astronauts in the Tiangong and ground controllers.

The station of Tiangong is now L-shaped and will remain in shape until the docking with the Mengtian lab module that is scheduled to be launched around the year's end, the agency said.

Wentian was launched in late July from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province to connect with the Tianhe core module.

Wentian is currently the largest and heaviest spacecraft China has ever built and the world's heaviest self-propelled spaceship with its 23 ton weight and 17.9 meter length.

There are eight scientific cabinets in the gigantic lab. They are used mostly to serve biological and life science studies and can support research on the growth, aging and genetic traits of plants, animals and microbes in the space environment.

Wentian has 22 extravehicular payload adapters capable of carrying scientific equipment needed for experiments that require exposure to the space environment, cosmic rays, vacuum and solar winds.

Three groups of Chinese astronauts have lived and worked in the Tiangong space station, which consists now of the Tianhe module, the Wentian lab, the Shenzhou XIV spacecraft and the Tianzhou 4 cargo ship.

The three crew members of the Shenzhou XIV mission have spent nearly four months in it and have carried out two spacewalks. They will stay in the station until early December when the Shenzhou XV crew will take over.

The second lab component of the Mengtian space lab, Tiangong's second lab component, is scheduled to be launched in October.

The mission planners said that scientific equipment onboard will be used for microgravity studies and to carry out experiments in fluid physics, materials science, combustion science, and fundamental physics.

Once Mengtian is connected to Tiangong, the station will be T-shaped and astronauts will have as much as 110 cubic meters of usable space.