Text: | Print|

China plans to launch space station in 2018   

中国空间站将于2018年发射 2022年基本建成

全国人大代表、中国载人飞船系统总设计师张柏楠透露,中国的空间站将于2018年发射,2022年基本建成。 [查看全文]
2015-03-05 13:42 Ecns.cn Web Editor: Mo Hong'e
1

(ECNS) - China is planning to launch its space station in 2018 and complete the project by 2022, Zhang Bonan, chief designer of China's manned spacecraft system, told China News Service on Wednesday.

The station will be multi-cabin with a large capacity and high power, where Chinese scientists and their international colleagues will be able to work together in labs, according to Zhang, who is also a deputy of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature. [Special coverage]

The challenges that China needs to overcome are mainly supply lines, including the absorption of carbon dioxide and the collection and reuse of urine, to enable astronauts to live in space for a long time.

The scientist also said both China's Tiangong-1 space module launched in 2011 and the Tiangong-1 scheduled in 2016 serve to test the technology for life support systems.

China has conducted experiments with small-scale closed ecological systems on the ground to produce oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide by growing vegetables and using urine as fertilizer.

It is expected that astronauts can live off this ecological system, rather than on outside assistance, but the difficulty to maintain the balance is enormous, Zhang added. 

But Zhang said that if humans want to move to other planets, an ecological system is a precondition.

Comments (0)
Most popular in 24h
  Archived Content
Media partners:

Copyright ©1999-2018 Chinanews.com. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.