China’s Tiangong-2 space laboratory arrived in its operational orbit after completing a pair of orbit-raising maneuvers following its successful launch on Thursday.
The ‘Heavenly Palace’ is now awaiting the arrival of the Shenzhou-11 spacecraft with two crew members set for a month-long stay aboard the orbiting complex.
The 8,600-Kilogram space station module lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert at 14:04 UTC on Thursday, riding atop a Long March 2F rocket. Heading south-east across China’s mainland, the 52-meter carrier rocket provided Tiangong-2 with a smooth nine-and-a-half-minute ride into Low Earth Orbit.
Upon separation from the booster, Tiangong-2 immediately fired its low-thrust engines to pull away from the Long March 2F upper stage. The spacecraft then nulled attitude rates and successfully unfurled its two large solar arrays while still in communication with tracking ships deployed to the Pacific Ocean. With good health data coming from the Tiangong-2 spacecraft, mission controllers in Beijing declared the launch a full success.
