China is scheduled to launch a space station into orbit in less than an hour. According to Ars Technica:
China will take its next step toward a large space station on Thursday, when it intends to launch the Tiangong-2 laboratory into orbit. The 8.5-ton, 10.4-meter-long facility will launch from the Jiuquan launch center in the Gobi Desert, aboard a Long March 2-F rocket. The launch is set for 10:04am ET (14:04pm UTC) Thursday, and live video is available.
This space station, "Heavenly Palace 2," will be China's second after it launched the similarly sized Tiangong-1 laboratory in 2011. Following this week's launch, China plans to send two taikonauts to Tiangong-2 in four to six weeks aboard a Shenzhou-11 spacecraft. They will live there for about a month, testing out the lab's life support systems and performing scientific research. According to China's official news service, Xinhua, those experiments will involve areas of medicine, physics, and biology, as well as quantum key transmission, space atomic clock, and solar storm research.
China has plans within the next decade to send up an even larger space station. This, on top of plans to establish a moon colony, as well.
Also at Spaceflight Now.
[Update] The launch was a success — coverage at: phys.org and Nature.
Related Stories
A Chinese newspaper and other sources are reporting that China is already testing an EmDrive thruster in space, aboard the Tiangong-2 space station:
[Researchers] in China have announced that they've already been testing the controversial drive in low-Earth orbit, and they're looking into using the EM Drive to power their satellites as soon as possible.
Big disclaimer here - all we have to go on right now is a press conference announcement [archive.is] and an article from a government-sponsored Chinese newspaper (and the country doesn't have the best track record when it comes to trustworthy research).
[...] But what the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) team is saying also corresponds with information provided to IB Times from an anonymous source. According to their informant, China already has an EM Drive on board its version of the International Space Station, the space laboratory Tiangong-2.
[Continues...]
The Guardian reports on the Tianzhou-1's, China's first automated cargo spacecraft, first mission to the station:
China's first cargo spacecraft docked successfully with the Tiangong-2 space lab on Saturday, the official Xinhua news agency reported, marking a major step towards Beijing's goal of establishing a permanently manned space station by 2022. ...
The Tianzhou-1 cargo resupply spacecraft made the automated docking process with the orbiting space lab after it had taken off on Thursday evening from the Wenchang satellite launch centre in the southern island province of Hainan....
The cargo spacecraft mission provides an "important technological basis" to build a Chinese space station, state media have said. It can reportedly carry six tonnes of goods, two tonnes of fuel and can fly unmanned for three months.
Seems like Cold War era again:
President Xi Jinping has prioritised advancing China's space programme to strengthen national security.,,,
The US Defense Department has highlighted China's increasing space capabilities, saying it was pursuing activities aimed at preventing other nations from using space-based assets in a crisis.
China insists it has only peaceful ambitions in space, but has tested anti-satellite missiles.
2007 - Chinese anti-satellite missile test
1985 - American anti-satellite missile test
Chinese exclusion policy of NASA
Related: China Launched its Second "Heavenly Palace" Thursday Morning [Updated]
China's Shenzhou 11 Docks at Tiangong 2 Space Station
Space Race 2.0: China May Already be Testing an EmDrive in Orbit
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:23PM
It's in orbit.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:43PM
How is the dim sum?
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:06PM
"Some you win, and dim sum you loose."
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @04:13PM
Can somebody with more knowledge comment on how difficult and impressive this is?
For example, this "space station" could be a modest "small room the size of your average compact car orbiting for a few weeks, expected to deorbit within a few months sent up as an experiment"... or it could be a multi-room complex which will survive for years and is expected for multiple return trips and continued use."
The article says it's about 40 tons, but I have no context to understand what that means. Is this amazing, impressive, or meh?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday September 15 2016, @04:33PM
I believe it's a single module. One launch got the entire thing up there.
We'll be able to appreciate the scale better when they send astronauts to dock with it in a few weeks.
The next iteration, Tiangong-3, will form the basis of a station that will be around Mir size.
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(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:31PM
China aims to launch the Tianhe 1 module around 2018 to form the centerpiece of the country’s larger orbital complex. Two 20-ton research modules and power-generating solar power array will join Tianhe 1 in orbit by 2022, when the station will be declared operational with a permanent rotating three-person crew, according to Chinese state media reports.
Didn't hear anything about a Tiangong-3.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:13PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong-3 [wikipedia.org]
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-37370278 [bbc.com]
http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/missions/human-spaceflight/china-reveals-design-planned-tiangong-3-space-station/ [spaceflightinsider.com]
http://www.zmescience.com/space/second-china-space-station-robit/ [zmescience.com]
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(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Thursday September 15 2016, @04:23PM
Wu told reporters Wednesday that the Tiangong 1 spacecraft stopped sending data to Earth in March, and the module is expected to make an uncontrolled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere in late 2017.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday September 15 2016, @04:25PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by martyb on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:49PM
tl;dr Logged-in users have control over what time zone is used to display story dates/times.
Steps to change your setting:
It looks to me that you currently have selected:
Date/Time Format: "Sunday March 21, @10:00AM"
Time Zone: "-1200 International Date Line West"
At some point, I'd like to see the site support a free-format date/time selection (ala strftime(); e.g. "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"), but there's more to implementing it on this site than first meets the eye. Maybe some other 'time'. =)
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday September 16 2016, @01:45PM
Okay, I've now done that, but it only lets me specify a base UTC offset (not a time zone) and then whether I want DST on, off, or automatic. Automatic doesn't work, which isn't surprising because a UTC offset isn't a time zone and so is not enough information to know whether I'm currently in DST.
To be honest, I'd be happy with it just displaying UTC (and labelling it UTC), but this is the web. My web browser knows my time zone. Other websites manage to localise the time automatically - it's not that hard - so why is it so difficult for this one?
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday September 28 2016, @01:48PM
This is well beyond my area of expertise. I had previously reached out to other devs but it seems there's been no response to your query. Am reaching out to them again.
The labeling of a timestamp as being UTC may have some UI layout issues on the site, but is probably the easiest change to make.
As for auto-detecting the user's timezone, I am curious as to how that could be done. In my particular case, lookups based on my IP address incorrectly determine that I am coming from the midwest USA. So, there is a question of accuracy. Secondly, it would seem to me that implementing auto-detection would require Javascript (please correct me if there is some other way!) The community has strongly spoken out against requiring Javscript to implement features of the site.
It would be very helpful if you could provide links to site(s) that implement auto-timezone detection.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 29 2016, @01:01AM
We do adjust for DST, we just don't adjust what we call your zone when we do. So, during DST in Central you're given the correct (-5) offset even though the label says -6. We should probably be more clear about that.
If you want actual UTC, set your zone to +0000 Universal Coordinated, the "U" and "C" from UTC ("Time" being redundant in this context).
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday September 29 2016, @08:29AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 29 2016, @10:34AM
Which is why there are Western European, GMT, and UTC as options for +0000. If you have a better way of describing time zones than their difference from UTC, I'd love to hear it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:39PM
A small microsatellite named Banxing 2 [skyrocket.de] stowed aboard Thursday’s launch will fly near Tiangong 2 in orbit and collect images of the space lab.
I don't expect the Chinese government will publish the information, but I wonder if anyone knows or will be trying to find the frequency and encoding for the image transmissions. It would be pretty interesting to capture them as transmitted before "post processing".
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:53PM
Please submit a story if you find out, so we can enjoy them too!