China has launched the last of the three modules that will comprise its space station, set to be the second permanently inhabited outpost in low-earth orbit after the NASA-led International Space Station.
The unscrewed Mengtian, or “Dreaming of the Heavens,” module was launched atop China’s most powerful rocket, the Long March 5B, from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre in the southern island province of Hainan.
The 23-tonne Mengtian, also a laboratory module, is expected to dock with an axial port at one end of Tianhe later today.