Tiangong will host more than 1,000 experiments over a decade, including attempts to reproduce results from the International Space Station.
Credit: Chine Nouvelle/SIPA/Shutterstock
Building a space station is a massive achievement, says Paolo de Souza, who develops space technologies at Griffith University in the Gold Coast, Australia. “It’s outstanding.” The space station has opened a new scientific playground for Chinese researchers, he adds. with the United Nations, developed by researchers from Japan, Russia, India and Mexico, among others.The final module, Mengtian, is one of two modules designed to host scientific experiments — the other, Wentian, was launched in July. Together, Mengtian and Wentian will make up the space station’s arms by docking onto the core module, Tianhe, which has been orbiting Earth since April 2021.
On board are more than 20 mini-laboratories fitted with centrifuges, cold chambers reaching temperatures as low as –80 °C, a high-temperature furnace, multiple lasers and an optical atomic clock. These will be used to conduct experiments similar to thoseon the International Space Station , including investigations into how long-term confinement in low Earth orbit affects astronauts’ health, how to prevent fires on various materials, and the quantum properties of gases.