Work on space lab ramps up
China is developing and testing the Tiangong II space laboratory, Shenzhou XI manned spacecraft and Tianzhou I cargo spacecraft amid a massive space exploration drive, according to the country's major spacecraft maker.
"Unlike Tiangong I, the Tiangong II will be a genuine space lab. It is set to perform a lot of space scientific and application experiments and make preparations for our future space station," said Liao Jianlin, deputy chief designer of Tiangong II at the China Academy of Space Technology in Beijing. He made the remark to Chinese reporters in an open house for the media to mark the first China Space Day on Sunday.
The State Council announced in late March that starting this year, April 24 - the day China launched its first satellite into space in 1970 - would be marked as China Space Day.