杏吧原创

China鈥檚 space station is to be a ghost town no longer. A crewed space capsule is scheduled to dock with the nation鈥檚 orbiting Tiangong-1 space lab for the first time next week. Though the feat won鈥檛 break new technological ground, it will be a major achievement for the superpower that came late to the space race.

鈥淭he fact that China is going it alone here is significant,鈥� says , a historian at the Smithsonian Institution鈥檚 National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. 鈥淚t gains critical experience for China in long-duration missions, rendezvous and docking鈥� something it must do to close the gap between it and the other spacefaring nations.鈥�

China is . A Soyuz-derived crew capsule carrying three taikonauts will launch atop a Long March-2F rocket (pictured) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in north-west China. Two days later, the aim is to dock with Tiangong-1 (鈥淗eavenly Palace鈥�) 鈥� a 10-metre long, 3-metre diameter space lab launched in September last year. The crew is expected to include China鈥檚 first female taikonaut.

The ability to flit crews between Earth and an orbital station will be a 鈥渟ignificant step鈥� for China, chief designer Zhou Jianping told China鈥檚 official news agency, Xinhua. Launius says it鈥檚 no new technical feat though: 鈥淪pace stations in orbit go back to the 1970s.鈥� Russia orbited the first Salyut in 1971, NASA lofted Skylab in 1973 and Russia launched Mir in 1986 鈥� all before construction of the International Space Station began in 1998.