August 2016
Space stations - drivers of cooperation
... (CSS), is likely to be fully operational by 2024. As it is, China’s efforts appear impressive considering that its prototype station Tiangong-1 has been in orbit since September 2011 and Chinese astronauts or taikonauts have made as many as five...
October 2020
Connecting the global space community
... laboratory to the ISS, the further development of the Chinese Space Station (CSS), as phase three of its Tiangong programme, and a number of innovative private commercial spaceflight initiatives. Engineers at work on UAE’s Hope satellite which...
June 2021
China’s ascending commercial space sector
... space programme will continue to grow, with the China Space Station (CSS) – the third phase of the Tiangong programme – planned for launch later this year, and future Chang’e missions, deep space exploration missions...
May 2022
China’s international collaboration in space: an evolving approach from the Middle Kingdom
... Kong-based APT Satellite Holdings. A robotic arm repositions the Tianzhou 2 cargo spaceship during a test at China’s Tiangong space station on 6 January 2022. The success rate of these initial international missions was not high, with...
June 2022
Military space – how worried should we be?
... to the problem of debris, which can threaten the crews of the International Space Station and the Chinese Tiangong. A new dimension is what are sometimes called ‘inspector’ satellites, which may follow, inspect and potentially disable...
October 2023
Space architecture on Earth
... module on the International Space Station, now widely used, while China had followed suit with its Tiangong station. The next innovation was air launch: using an aircraft to do the heavy lifting by taking a small rocket...
