China's Mengtian space lab module, the third major component of the nation's Tiangong space station, was launched on Monday afternoon in a key step to complete the in-orbit assembly of Tiangong.
The lab module's carrier — a Long March 5B heavy-lift rocket — blasted off at 3:37 pm at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in the southernmost island province of Hainan.
After flying more than eight minutes, the rocket placed the spacecraft into a low-Earth orbit nearly 400 kilometers above the ground in which Tiangong is traveling.
The lab module is about 17.9 meters long, has a diameter of 4.2 meters and weighs more than 23 metric tons, according to its designers at the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology.
Gan Keli, Mengtian's project manager at the Shanghai academy, said the spacecraft consists of four sections — a crew working compartment, a payload section, an airlock cabin and a service module.
In the next couple of hours, the Mengtian is scheduled to rendezvous and then dock with the Tiangong station's Tianhe core module, according to the China Manned Space Agency.
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