Details of future space station revealed

The China Manned Space Agency made public on Tuesday some technical specifications of the core module of the country's future manned space station.

The core module, Tianhe, or Harmony of Heavens, will have three parts: the connecting section, life-support and control section, and resources section, the agency said in a statement at the Fifth Manned Space Conference, which opened on Tuesday in Xi'an, Shaanxi province.

The module will be equipped with three docking hatches reserved for visiting manned or cargo spacecraft and two berthing locations used to connect with space laboratories. There will also be a hatch for astronauts' extravehicular activities, the statement said.