APA – China’s cargo spacecraft, carrying supplies, equipment and propellant, docked with the space station’s key module Tianhe on Sunday, the official news agency Xinhua reported.
The Tianzhou-2, or “Heavenly Vessel” in Chinese, autonomously rendezvoused and docked with Tianhe at 5:01 a.m. Beijing time.
It blasted off via a Long March-7 Y3 rocket at 8:55 p.m. Beijing time on Saturday from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on the southern island of Hainan, the China Manned Space Engineering Office said, APA reports quoting Reuters.
With a designed life of more than 1 year, Tianzhou-2 carried supplies for future astronauts including food for the Shenzhou-12 crew which will be launched next month for a three-month stay on the station, as well as two tons of propellant.
