Astronauts take over latest module of China's space station

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – Moving towards completion of China's space station construction, three Chinese astronauts entered the Mengtian lab module on Thursday, China Manned Space Agency said.

The latest development in China’s upcoming indigenously built T-shaped space station comes after Beijing on Monday launched into space the third and last module – the Mengtian.

The astronauts, known as Taikonauts in China, entered the Mengtian lab module from the Shenzhou-14 manned spaceship after the latest module completed its transposition early Thursday, thus completing the assembly of the space station. It was live-streamed by the Chinese public broadcaster CGTN.

This lab module is expected to carry out microgravity science, fluid physics, and material science experiments.

China’s T-shaped space station consists of the Tianhe core module and Wentian and Mengtian lab modules and is expected to be completed by this year-end.

According to Chinese astronauts: “Tianhe provides life support for astronauts on board and functions as the control center of the space station, while Mengtian and Wentian are mainly for microgravity scientific research and space life science research.”

It was in July that the three Taikonauts entered the first lab module, known as Wentian, marking the first time Chinese astronauts entered a lab module in orbit.