By 
September 17th, 2017
China’s Tianzhou-1 resupply craft has completed docking and refueling tasks with uncrewed Tiangong-2 space lab.
Credit: CCTV
China’s Tianzhou-1 resupply craft has backed away from the uncrewed Tiangong-2 space lab. The Sunday departure at 4:15 p.m. (Beijing time) had the cargo ship move to an orbit of roughly 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth.
The Chinese Xinhua news agency reports that Tianzhou-1 will continue to carry out experiments before nose-diving into Earth’s atmosphere. Pre de-orbit, the supply ship will gather experience for building and operating the country’s larger space station in the 2020s.
In-orbit refueling
Tianzhou-1 was launched on April 20 from south China’s Hainan Province.
The craft completed automated docking with the orbiting Tiangong-2 space lab on April 22.
The two docked spacecraft completed the first in-orbit refueling on April 27, a second refueling on June 15 and a final one, yesterday on September 16.
Posted in Space News
