Global Times reported that China successfully launched the Mong Thien laboratory modules into the fixed orbit at 15:37 on October 31 from the Van Xuong Space Launch Station on Hainan Island. This is the third and also the last part of China's first three modular space station - the Tianjin space station.
Module of Mong Thien Labor was launched by the Truong Chinh-5B Y4 rocket. About 8 minutes after the launch, the module separated from the rocket and entered a pre-determined orbit, marking the success of the launch mission - the Chinackness Space Administration (CMSA) said.
According to CMSA, Mong Thien modules will automatically dock and quickly be assembled with Thien Hoa core modules.
China's first cosmic station named Thien Cung has a complete T-shaped assembly, consisting of 3 main components: Thien Hoa core modulate in the T-shaped part and two laboratory modulate Van Thien and Mong Thien are two T-shaped wings.
The Than Chau ships carrying people to the station will be assembled in a tri-head T-shaped column, turning it into a long-tailed cross-head. Thien Chau ships carrying goods to the station will be assembled in the T-shaped tail area.
To date, the Truong Chinh-5B rocket has successfully launched all three modules, each one weighing more than 22 tons. Module of Mong Thien laboratory is 17.88 meters long, the largest diameter is 4.2 meters, and weighs 23.3 tons when launched. This is the largest weight that China has ever lifted.
The Truong Chinh-5B is a one-and-a-half-storey rocket with a take-off force of 1,078 tons. The missile is capable of sending a 25-ton object into orbit near Earth.
Module Mong Thien is designed to become a working area for astronauts and focus on microgravity scientific research, as well as pioneering scientific projects including liquid physics, combustion processes, materials science and space technology. Therefore, Mong Thien does not have life support systems such as Thien Hoa core modules or Van Thien experiment.
Module Mong Thien brought the world's first cold-atoms in space, including a hydrogen clock, a rubidi clock and an optical clock.
If successful, a cold-atomic clock will create the most accurate time and frequency system in space, not a single second in hundreds of millions of years, said Zhang Wei, director of the Center for the Development of Space Technology and Engineering.
The world's first cold-atomic clock operating in space was made by Chinese scientists. It was launched with the Thien Cung-2 space laboratory in 2016 and had an error of less than a second for 30 million years.
Now, through ground-based experiments, Chinese scientists have developed a cold- room temperature monitor with much higher accuracy than the Thien Cung-2 version.
Scientists explain that the development of space-based cold-atomic clock technology will contribute to positioning and guiding satellites with higher accuracy, while supporting basic physics such as exploration of dark matter and detecting attractive waves.
