China's heavenly Palace. The Tianggong is the most advanced space station ever deployed by
the human race, and that's a big deal, but it's not really something
that the people in the Western world really understand very well or even know that
much about. The Chinese have reinvented the space station for the twenty first century,
and this is how they've done it. This is the space race.
The thing is, we've been putting space stations into orbit since the early nineteen
seventies, but the Tianggong is the first one to stand out as something that
looks more like science fiction than the status quo, which is essentially just a
submarine in space. Did you know that the first space station ever deployed was
a single module Soviet design from nineteen seventy one called the Salute, and then
two years later in nineteen seventy three, NASA topped that with their own station
named Skylab, which was built inside a hollowed out upper stage of the gigantic
Saturn five moon rocket. But it was in nineteen eighty six that the world
saw the deployment of the first ever modular space station, which the Soviets named
mir It would take a decade to assemble the seven module mir station, and
even with the collapse of the Soviet Union coming right in the middle of the
project, the Russians would cement themselves as the leaders in space station development.
So when we finally arrive at the International Space Station that we all know so
well today, we can see that it shares a lot of resemblance with Russia's
Mirror. In fact, given that the Russians had decades of experience with multiple
space stations and NASA had virtually zero practical knowledge, I don't think it's unfounded
to look at the ISS more like a mir version two point zero, because
it's pretty clear where this design approach came from. If we look back from
Salue to Skylab to MIR to ISS, we're not exactly seeing a massive amount
of progress or evolution to the design. If anything, the Skylab really sticks
out as being the nicest space station of the bunch, and that was literally
fifty years ago. The Soviet design aesthetic that carried over all the way to
ISS has a lot more in common with a submarine than the starship Enterprise.
It's cramped, it's cluttered. There are pipes and wires and god knows what
else sticking out from all angles. Now we flip forward to China's Tiangong,
and the difference is night and day. There are only about twenty years between
the ISS and Tiangong, but it looks like a century worth of progress.
The Tiangong now consists of three modules, forming a T shaped space station fifty
five meters long and thirty nine meters wide that orbits around four hundred kilometers above
the Earth's surface. The Tianha is the core command module, first launched in
April twenty twenty one. The Wenzan Experiment module serves as a combination of crew
quarters, research lab, and airlock, which was added in July twenty twenty
two. The Menxian module is a twin to the Wentzan and functions purely as
a research and experiment space and join the station in November twenty twenty two.
As far as space stations go, this is an incredibly rapid pace of construction.
It took Russia and NASA two years just to get the ISS to a
state where it was habitable, and it was a ten year international endeavor for
ISS to reach a state of completion. And while it might seem like this
station came out of nowhere. This is actually phase three of a plan that
China started all the way back in the nineties that they called Project nine two
one. This is kind of like China's blueprint to conquer space. Phase one
of the plan was the development and launch of a crew capable rocket and spacecraft.
These would be the Long March to f and the Shenzhou, which both
launched for the first time in nineteen ninety nine. The Long March series of
rockets take their name from Mao Zidong's history as a war hero and leader of
the People's Red Army. The name Shechenzhou means divine vessel. By two thousand
and three, this system had put the first Chinese taikonat into low Earth orbit
on the Sheenzo five mission. This began phase two of the plan, which
was essentially a practice phase. By Shechenzo seven, the Chinese had performed their
first spacewalk using their own extra vehicular suits. Following that, the country began
to deploy test modules that were like miniature space stations. Chinese crews would make
their first extended stays in space and practice docking maneuvers between the test modules and
the Shenzho. This time also marked the development of China's Tianjo spacecraft or Heavenly
Ship, which is a cargo transport vehicle with a carrying capacity of sixty five
hundred kilograms. This spacecraft was designed to fly on the new Long March seven
rocket, a modern replacement for the two F that was first launched in twenty
sixteen. Phase three of the plan is where we are at right now,
the development and assembly of a new space station, the Tiangong or Heavenly Palace.
So why does China feel so strongly about creating their very own space station.
Well, for one, because it's really cool. Who wouldn't want their
own personal hangout in space? But for two also it probably has to do
with the Chinese being banned from the International Space Station, which is obviously counterintuitive
to the literal name of the station, But in twenty eleven, the United
States decided that China was prohibited from visiting the station. The Chinese ban was
specifically rolled out through a Department of Defense Act passed in the US Congress,
which stipulated that NASA may not use their funding to collaborate in any way with
China. The reasons given focused around human rights issues and national security. But
more than anything, the US was afraid that China would steal their ideas or
spy on them, or something to that effect, which is a reasonable concern
given that both the US and China have been heavily involved in a ton of
shady spy stuff for the better part of a century, and that's created a
lot of paranoia. Anyway, the Chinese decided, to hell with them,
We'll build our own, and here we are. The first thing that you'll
notice about the interior of the Tiangong is that it looks spacious and wide open,
especially compared to the ISS. Tiangong has a very minimalist modern design.
What's interesting is that the outer diameter of the Tiangong modules are nearly the exact
same as the diameter of the ISS modules, about four point two meters or
fourteen feet across, so the difference is in the volume of internal space available.
There are a few reasons for that. For one, the ISS modules
are typically much shorter, with more connection points in between that create bottlenecks in
the structure. For example, the Destiny lab on the ISS, which is
the primary operating facility for US astronauts, is eight point four meters or twenty
eight feet long, while the Weenzan and men Tian modules are both eighteen meters
or fifty nine feet in length. And for two, the technology on Tiangong
is just much more modern and their or smaller and able to fit into a
smaller space. For example, many of the systems on Tangong will connect wirelessly
instead of having to run a labyrinth of cables around like what we see on
the ISS. Also, much of the technology on the Tiangong is hidden behind
these plane white panels when not in use. I don't know if that's more
functional or just aesthetic, or if they straight up don't want anyone else to
be able to see what they're working on, but it does make the station
look very clean and modern. The first module of Tangong successfully reached orbit in
April of twenty twenty one. This core structure is called the tan Ho,
which means harmony of the heavens. The Tanha is a twenty ton structure with
a maximum diameter of four point two meters and contains everything necessary for a functional
space station that can support a crew of three. It has solar panels,
propulsion systems, life support, a robotic arm and a sophisticated docking node and
airlock. There are three main sects to the core module. Starting at the
smaller end, there is a spherical multi docking node. This has four ports,
with one obviously being permanently attached to the tanha. The port opposite to
the core module is the main docking port for the station. This is where
the Schenjo crew vehicle can dock. The two side ports on the multi docking
node are berthing ports for the twin research labs to the core module. The
bottom port on the node is a second crew docking port. This is for
use during crew handovers when two groups of three taikonots are occupying the station simultaneously,
and the top port is actually not a docking port at all, it's
a hatchway. This is for the crew to exit the station and perform spacewalks.
Moving up to the narrow cylindrical section of tanha, this is the crew
quarters. There are individual bunks for three crew members and all of the necessary
facilities like the space toilet, and then at the wider end of the core
module is a working area with three experimental rack This is also where the propulsion
section for the station is located. This maintains orbital control, and lastly,
there is another docking port at the end of the module that is specifically for
the Tianjo cargo craft. This is also a future docking port for the Chinese
Space Telescope. The Tanha is also the module that supports the station's main robotic
arm, which is ten meters in length. It's a little shorter than the
Canada ARM two that is currently in operation at the ISS, which is seventeen
meters long, but the Chinese arm does have a similar capability and the possibility
for expansion. More on that in a bit. The next title is the
Wenzan Module. On July twenty fourth, twenty twenty two, China launched their
Wenzan Research Laboratory module for the Tiangong. The name Wenzan translates as Heavenly Quest.
This is another twenty ton structure that was deployed on the Long March five
B rocket. This is China's first heavy lift space launcher and is responsible for
getting the three modules of the Tango into their four hundred kilometer high orbit.
The Long March five B configuration is a really interesting rocket design. It uses
a hydrogen fuel burning core stage and is strapped with four liquid fueled side boosters
that burn RP one kerosene. This combination makes the Long March five B the
third most powerful rocket currently in service around the world, behind the Falcon Heavy
at number one and the Delta four Heavy. The process that this particular rocket
uses to put these twenty ton payloads into their orbital path is pretty unique and
very controversial. So once the rocket clears Earth's atmosphere, which happens at about
one hundred kilometers in altitude, those four side boosters will drop off, but
the core booster engine will continue to burn. A typical rocket will have a
full stage separation at this point, where the entire lower section of the rocket
will detach and fall back down to Earth, where it usually splashes into the
ocean and again. On a typical rocket, a second stage engine will then
fire up to propel what's left of the rocket and the payload into the orbital
insertion. The Long March five B doesn't do that. After the foreside boosters
drop off, the rocket stays whole and the core booster engines propel the module
all the way to its orbital insertion point before finally separating. That means the
majority of the rocket structure is now in orbit, so it won't just fall
straight back down into the ocean. But it's not in a stable orbit either,
so it won't stay up there for too long. It's going to circle
the Earth for a few days as it slowly loses altitude and gets pulled back
into the atmosphere. Now, these are just too big to vaporize like a
regular satellite. It doesn't stay whole, but chunks are going to make it
all the way down to the surface of the Earth. And that's why this
particular long March five B booster stage broke up over the Indian Ocean and rain
down scrap metal over the islands of Indonesia. Anyway, the Wenzian module serves
dual purpose on the space station. It has an additional three crew sleeping quarters
that bring the total capacity of the station up to six people at once,
and it also provides space for a variety of scientific experiments. It also houses
two giant solar panels that give the module a fifty five meter wingspan from tip
to tip. These are state of the art solar cells that are super thin
and flexible to maximize the amount of surface area that could be deployed. There
are also extremely efficient and generate around seven kilowatts of electricity for the station.
There are four experimental rack spaces on the WENCN containing research projects on life sciences,
biotechnology, and variable gravity effects. Then, moving towards the smaller end
of the module, there is a space for external experiments. This is basically
a section where they can attach nodes to the outside hull of the ship to
collect data and crew can access the external attachment points through the airlock and hatch
on the WENCN. This will become the primary airlock of the station for spacewalks,
and the crew can also access these attachment points using a secondary robotic arm
that comes with the NZN. This one is just five meters in length.
But the cool thing about this arm is that it can actually crawl around the
station and operate from different locations. So there are multiple attachment points for the
arm around the station, and to crawl, the arm just grabs onto the
next attachment point and then lets go of the previous attachment point. It can
just keep repeating this maneuver all around the station like a kind of weird robotic
caterpillar thing. What's more, this secondary arm can actually link up with the
main arm to form one fifteen meter long robotic arm that would essentially match the
size and capability of the Canada arm iiO on the ISS. The third and
final big piece of the puzzle is called the Mentian or Heavenly Dream. This
is another research laboratory module that arrived at Tiangong in October twenty twenty two.
The Manxian is going to be very similar to the NCIAN, with the biggest
difference being that Megxian doesn't have any crew sleeping quarters, so it offers more
space for experimental racks. Also, the Manxian is equipped with its own airlock
that will function as a secondary cargo port. The Menxian also has its own
giant solar panel array, identical to the NCN, So the addition of the
third module has fully energized the station and brought it up to full functionality.
And then there's the Chinese Space Telescope. All we know is that it is
currently in development and will likely have similar capabilities to the Hubble Telescope. This
is designed to operate independently from the Tiangong. It will orbit close by,
but it's not an attached section of the station. The telescope will have the
capability to dock with the Tiangong so that it can be easily serviced and upgraded
over time, which is something that can't easily be done with the Hubble and
is virtually impossible to do with James Webb, So that is a big advantage.
Beyond that, we already have word that China is considering another expansion to
the Tiangong. At a recent meeting of the International Astronautical Congress, Chinese officials
revealed plans to expand the Tiangong station from three modules to six. China plans
to launch a new multifunctional expansion module sometime in the coming years. They believe
that additional full sized modules will begin to join that station in around four years
time. As it stands, there will be a limited number of international research
projects arriving at Tiangong in collaboration with the United States Office for Outer Space Affairs
and the European Space Agency, so that's a great start. But with the
relatively small size right now of the Tiangong, we're not likely to see international
crew members up there for a visit, though an expansion in the future could
change that. We definitely won't be seeing any Americans involved with the Tiangong.
The same Wolf Amendment that prevents the Chinese from ever visiting the ia SAS works
both ways and would prohibit American astronauts from having anything to do with the Chinese
station. So hopefully that's helped everyone to get a better picture of how the
Tiangong operates and what's going on up there. This information is very hard to
come by, and that's really unfortunate. Hopefully there's going to be a day
where global political tensions cool off and we can all work together and stuff.
Of course, given the current situation and based on whatever is happening right now
around Taiwan, that clearly won't be the case anytime soon, So this will
have to do for now.