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Preparations for the launch of the Tiangong-2 space laboratory are underway in China's northwestern Gansu province. The Long March 2F carrier rocket will take the Tiangong-2 space lab into orbit next Tuesday.
From the vertical transportation of the Long-march 2F rocket to the numerous pre-launch technical examinations, engineers of Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center have gone through tremendous amount of preparation work ahead of the launch.
And September 15 marks the beginning of the launch window for the new space lab, the launch window extends to the 20th of September.
As the final full-system drill wrapped up well, the remaining work is to fuel the boosters 1 day prior to the launch. And aboard Tiangong-2, the astronauts will conduct space science experiments on a relatively large scale compared to the previous efforts on Tiangong-1.
And also we've discovered a few interesting features about Tiangong-2 lately: the new space lab is equipped with a new robotic arm, it will be accompanied by a small Banxing-2 satellite for technology demonstrations.
Banxing-2 is a satellite with the size of a shoebox that will capture images of the new station in orbit. Its predecessor, Banxing-1, accomplished the same mission for the Shenzhou 7 in September 2008.
Since launching its first manned space mission in 2003, China staged a spacewalk, landed a rover on the Moon, increased its cooperation in space with Europe, and launched a demo space station Tiangong 1 in 2011, the country is now prepared for taking its space program further with the launch of Tiangong 2 and Shenzhou 11 spacecraft with two astronauts on board next month.
