Beijing, Nov 3 (IANS) China will establish a manned space station around 2020, an official said Thursday.
Wu Ping, the country’s manned space program spokesperson, said that China’s spacecraft will conduct two more space docking missions in 2012. After that, the country will begin to build a space lab and space station.
China’s unmanned spacecraft Shenzhou-8 and its space lab module Tiangong-1 rendezvoused early Thursday, successfully completing the country’s first-ever space docking. The Chinese spacecraft docked in space more than 343 km above earth, reported Xinhua.
The country will complete the second step of its three-phase development strategy for its manned space program by establishing its own space lab around 2016, Wu said.
Wu said through more than 10 years of efforts, China has made breakthroughs in
key technologies and formed a set of design, production and experiment systems
for the spacecraft’s space docking.
