China’s Cargo Spacecraft Docks with Orbital Laboratory for First Time

Long March-7 rocket and Tianzhou-1 cargo spacecraft, China, April 17, 2017

© China Daily / Reuters


China’s Tianzhou-1 space freighter has successfully docked with the Tiangong-2, the country’s orbital lab. The automatic procedure was the first in the nation’s fast-paced space exploration program.

The Tianzhou-1, China’s first robotic cargo spacecraft, was launched on Thursday evening from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in south China’s Hainan Province, Xinhua news agency reported.

The docking procedure was completed at 12:23pm on Saturday (04:23 GMT), the report cited the Beijing Aerospace Control Center as saying.

- RT:  China’s cargo spacecraft docks with orbital laboratory for 1st time



It's still remarkable that China has come so far so fast with its space program.

America has been doing this for some while in sending robo spacecraft to the International Space Station but China only just got into the mix recently.  The speed of their development program is extraordinary.

America's Elon Musk owns the game for robo booster rockets.  In effect, he stole a long march when SpaceX managed that stunt in safely bringing a booster rocket back to a soft landing.  There's nowhere else with that technology.


The Space Race is getting exciting again after it hasn't been in years.   Washington will shake loose with the big bucks for space racing when they think those dirty Commies may ace them out.