Tiangong

Key facts

Science

Mission

Tiangong — 'Heavenly Palace' — is China's modular space station, and the country's permanent foothold in orbit. Excluded from the International Space Station, China built its own, drawing on the experience of its earlier Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2 laboratories to construct a full, long-term outpost. Assembled in low Earth orbit between 2021 and 2022, the station is built around three main modules: the core module Tianhe, which houses the crew and the station's controls, and two laboratory modules, Wentian and Mengtian, packed with research racks and external mounting points. Roughly a fifth the mass of the ISS, it is designed for a crew of three, with room for six during handovers. Tiangong has been continuously inhabited since 2021, with Shenzhou crews rotating roughly every six months and Tianzhou cargo ships keeping it supplied. Aboard it, taikonauts have made spacewalks, run hundreds of experiments in biology, physics and materials science, and operated a robotic arm to maintain the exterior. A free-flying space telescope, Xuntian, is planned to share its orbit so it can dock for servicing. With the ISS nearing the end of its life, Tiangong may become the only permanently crewed station in orbit.

1. 2021Tianhe core module launchesLaunch

   The first and central module of China's station reaches orbit.

2. 2021First crew aboardMilestone

   Shenzhou 12 delivers the first taikonauts to the new station.

3. 2022Station completeMilestone

   The Wentian and Mengtian lab modules complete the three-module T-shape.

4. 2024Continuously crewedMilestone

   Shenzhou crews rotate every six months, keeping Tiangong permanently inhabited.

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