Rocket that will carry Tianzhou ship to space arrives at launch center

The Long March 7 carrier rocket tasked with lifting the Tianzhou 6 cargo spaceship has recently been transported to the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province, according to China Manned Space Agency.

The agency said on Monday the rocket arrived at the Wenchang facility on Thursday and will undergo prelaunch checks with the cargo ship in coming days.

Tianzhou 6 is scheduled to dock with the country's Tiangong space station early next month to deliver propellants, science payloads and necessities for the astronauts, according to mission plans previously published.

Before its arrival, the Tianzhou 5 will depart the station to leave the docking hatch open for Tianzhou 6 and then burn itself up during its descent toward Earth.

Pang Zhihao, an expert on space exploration, said compared with its predecessors the Tianzhou 6 will carry more equipment and materials for scientific experiments and technological demonstrations.

"The Tiangong space station began formal operations at the start of this year so astronauts are spending more time on science and technology tasks. Now a large proportion of their time will be used to install and fine-tune scientific and technological apparatuses, and carry out experiments and tests," he said.

"As the bioregenerative life-support system inside the Tiangong has been fully tested and proved functional, Tianzhou ships will no longer need to carry many living necessities and the space and weight saved can be used to transport more mission payloads."

Designed to function for more than a year, a Tianzhou cargo spaceship has two parts — a cargo cabin and a propulsion section. The vehicles are 10.6 meters long and 3.35 meters wide.

The cargo craft has a liftoff weight of 13.5 metric tons and can transport up to 6.9 tons of supplies to the space station.

The current crew inside the Tiangong — the three members of the Shenzhou XV mission — arrived at the station on Nov 30. Their six-month journey is scheduled to conclude around the end of May, and then the Shenzhou XVI crew will take over.

Orbiting Earth about 400 kilometers above the ground, Tiangong currently consists of three major components — a core module and two science lab modules — and is connected with two visiting craft — the Shenzhou XV crew ship and the Tianzhou 5 cargo ship.