Beijing – China plans to launch its first cargo spacecraft via a Long March-7 Y2 carrier rocket in April, a media report said on Monday.
According to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), the Tianzhou-1 cargo spacecraft, which departed from north China’s Tianjin on Feb. 5, arrived at the Wenchang Space Launch Centre in south China’s Hainan Province for assembling and testing.
Tianzhou-1, consisting of a cargo and propellant capsules, independently developed by China, has a take-off weight of about 13 tonnes, of which six is payload.
“It can remain in space on its own for as long as three months.
“It is capable of docking with the Tiangong-2 space lab and refueling it in addition to carrying out experiments and tests.
“The Long March-7 Y2 carrier rocket is scheduled to arrive at the launch centre in March,’’ the CMSA said.
Report said the launch of Tianzhou-1 would be a crucial step for China in building a space station by 2020, as cargo spacecraft was required to ship necessities to astronauts aboard the station.