Tiangong program

Space station program of the People's Republic of China

The Tiangong program is China's space program to create a modular space station, comparable to Mir. This program is independent and unconnected to any other international space active countries. It supports three astronauts for long term habitation.

After the United States threatened to use nuclear weapons during the Korean War, Mao Zedong decided that only a nuclear deterrent of its own would guarantee the security of the newly founded PRC. Thus, Mao announced his decision to develop China's own strategic weapons, including associated missiles. After the launch of mankind's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1 by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957, Mao decided to put China on an equal footing with the superpowers ("我们也要搞人造卫星"), using Project 581 with the idea of putting a satellite in orbit by 1959 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the PRC's founding. However, it would not be until 24 April 1970 that this goal would become a reality. Mao and Zhou Enlai began the PRC's crewed space program on 14 July 1967. China's first crewed spacecraft design was named Shuguang 1 (曙光一号) in January 1968. Project 714 was officially adopted in April 1971 with the goal of sending two astronauts into space by 1973 aboard the Shuguang spacecraft. The first screening process for astronauts had already ended on 15 March 1971, with 19 astronauts chosen. The program was soon cancelled due to political turmoil. The next crewed space program was even more ambitious and was proposed in March 1986 as Project 863. This consisted of a crewed spacecraft (Project 863–204) used to ferry astronaut crews to a space station (Project 863–205). Several spaceplane designs were rejected two years later and a simpler space capsule was chosen instead. Although the project did not achieve its goals, it would ultimately become the 1992 Project 921, encompassing the Shenzhou program, the Tiangong program, and the Chinese space station. On the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic of China's founding, China launched the Shenzhou 1 spacecraft on 20 November 1999 and recovered it after a flight of 21 hours. The country became the third country with a successful crewed space program by sending Yang Liwei into space aboard Shenzhou 5 on 15 October 2003 for more than 21 hours. It was a major success for Chinese space programs.

Chinese efforts to develop low Earth orbit space station capabilities will begin with a space laboratory phase, with the launch of three Tiangong test vehicles (later reduced to two). Its length is , diameter is ,

A second and a third test station were originally planned to precede the eventual modular station. These would be long, with a diameter of , and weigh up to and the size scaled down to less than
The resulting Tiangong 2 space laboratory was launched on 15 September 2016. The station made a controlled reentry on 19 July 2019 and burned up over the South Pacific Ocean.

A third space station proposed but later cancelled in favor of advancing to the new large modular station.

China plans to build the world's third multi module space station, to follow Mir and the International Space Station (ISS). The previous separate components will be integrated into a space station, arranged as: was launched first on 29 April 2021. Laboratory Cabin Module I (LCM 1 Wentian) and Laboratory Cabin Module II (LCM 2 Mengtian) – based on Tiangong 2 "space laboratory". Each laboratory module is 14.4 meters long, with the same maximum diameter and launch weight of the core module. The larger station will be assembled in 2021–2022 and have a design lifetime of at least ten years. The complex will weigh approximately and will support three astronauts for long term habitation.

After the success of China's crewed space launch, a Chinese official expressed interest in joining the International Space Station program. In 2010, European Space Agency ESA Director General Jean Jacques Dordain stated that his agency was ready to propose to the four other partners (CSA, JAXA, NASA, and Roscosmos) that China, India, and South Korea be invited to join the ISS partnership. China has indicated a willingness to cooperate further with other countries on crewed exploration.