Tiangong space station

The Tiangong space station (Chinese: 天宫; pinyin: Tiāngōng; lit. 'Heavenly Palace'), officially the China Space Station (CSS; Chinese: 中国空间站; pinyin: Zhōngguó kōngjiānzhàn), is China's first permanently crewed space station, in low Earth orbit since 2021. Operated by the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), it is China's third space station, under the Tiangong subprogram of the China Manned Space Program. A space laboratory, it hosts experiments on bioastronautics, microgravity, materials science and space technology. Crews of three travel aboard the Shenzhou spacecraft for missions of about six months, with temporary crew sizes of six during handovers. Cargo missions use the Tianzhou spacecraft. It is one of two operational space stations, alongside the International Space Station (ISS).

When China formally requested to join the ISS program in 2007, Roscosmos and the European Space Agency (ESA) supported cooperation with China, but the Wolf Amendment, enacted by the United States since 2011, prohibited Chinese participation. That same year, China launched Tiangong-1, gaining rendezvous and docking experience. In 2016, Tiangong-2 developed longer-term life support systems, and autonomous docking and refueling via Tianzhou. The current station has supported experiments involving researchers from 17 countries. It hosted the first astronaut from Hong Kong, and China is training astronauts from Macau and Pakistan.