in one and half a year which will be the fastest in history for any modular space station," said Chen Lan, analyst for the site, which specialises in China's space programme. "The CSS (Chinese Space Station) will complete its construction. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, the country's plans for its heavily promoted "space dream" have been put into overdrive.Ĭhina has made large strides in catching up with the United States and Russia, where astronauts and cosmonauts have decades of experience in space exploration. The third and final module is scheduled to dock in October, and Tiangong - which should have a lifespan of at least 10 years - is expected to become fully operational by the end of the year. Wentian will also serve as a backup platform to control the space station in the event of a failure. "But it will result in a much more capable station with the space and power to carry out more scientific experiments." "These are all technical challenges that the USSR pioneered with the Mir station in the late 1980s, but it's new to China," he told AFP. He said until the next module arrives, the space station will have a "rather unusual L-shape" which will take a lot of power to keep stable. "This is the first time China has docked such large vehicles together, which is a delicate operation," said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. It will dock with the existing module in space, a challenging operation that experts said will require several high-precision manipulations and the use of a robotic arm.