International Space Station – ISS (Photo: Photo by NASA via Getty Image)
The Asian Space Agency (AEMT) for manned missions said that China has today (30) completed the delivery of Tianzhou-2 supply ship, provisions and fuel to the Chinese space station.
Tianzhou-2 was scheduled to fly on 20 May, but Beijing postponed the launch due to technical reasons.
The coupling with the main module of the Chinese space station, launched on April 29, occurred at 5:01 am local time.
The mission lasted approximately eight hours after the launch of the Wenchang Space Center on Hainan Island in southern China.
On board, the unmanned spacecraft carried provisions and equipment for astronauts in addition to fuel.
About ten launches are planned by the end of next year to transport two more modules of the space station, several components and a team of three people.
The launch of the Tianhe central module of the Chinese space station was considered a success, but China was widely criticized for allowing uncontrolled re-entry of parts of the rocket that carried it into Earth’s orbit.
NASA’s representative, the US Space Agency, Bill Nelson, considered at the time of the rocket’s re-entry, that Beijing had failed to meet the required standards regarding the treatment of space debris.
The Chinese space program has faced some problems since an astronaut was put into orbit in 2003. For example, the launch of the space station has been delayed due to failure in the first version of the giant Long March 5B rocket.
Earlier this month, China, however, managed to land the Tianwen-1 probe, as well as the Zurong Rover on Mars, becoming the third country to achieve the feat after the United States and the former Soviet Union.
