{"id":34326,"date":"2026-09-03T14:13:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T18:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/?p=34326"},"modified":"2026-09-03T14:13:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T18:13:21","slug":"chinas-space-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/?p=34326","title":{"rendered":"CHINA’S SPACE STATION"},"content":{"rendered":"

https:\/\/spaceweather.com\/?tab=news<\/a><\/p>\n

CHINA’S SPACE STATION IS GETTING A MINI-MOON: <\/strong><\/span>China’s Tiangong space station is currently making a series of evening flybys<\/a> over the USA. First-time observers are almost always surprised by how bright it is. Only a handful of stars outshine it.<\/p>\n

Next year, it might resemble a double star.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThe Tiangong space station flying over Ballico, California. Credit: Richard Sears<\/span><\/p>\n

The China Manned Space Agency has announced plans to launch a 2-meter space telescope named “Xuntian” in 2027 that will circle Earth alongside the station–a 15-ton ‘mini-Moon’ that can easily dock with Tiangong whenever it needs repairs or fuel. Hubble, which has been the target of complicated repair missions five times, never had this advantage.<\/p>\n

Xuntian means “patrolling the heavens.” The telescope will be smaller than Hubble, but its field of view is 300 times wider. Over a 10-year mission, it will map about 40% of the sky at Hubble-class resolution.<\/p>\n

China also plans to expand the station with new modules and solar panels, turning the “T” into a “double-T” and doubling its mass to 180 tons. A spacewalk by two taikonauts on Aug. 28th did significant prep work: Repairs to solar panels and new debris shields stabilized the power grid for additional construction. When the ISS is deorbited in 2030-31, Tiangong will be the largest permanent outpost in orbit.<\/p>\n

Tiangong is easy to see if<\/em> you know when to look. Sign up for Backyard Astronomy Alerts<\/a> to receive realtime text messages when the Chinese space station is flying overhead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

https:\/\/spaceweather.com\/?tab=news CHINA’S SPACE STATION IS GETTING A MINI-MOON: China’s Tiangong space station is currently making a series of evening flybys over the USA. First-time observers are almost always surprised by how bright it is. Only a handful of stars outshine it. Next year, it might resemble a double star. The Tiangong space station flying over … Continue reading CHINA’S SPACE STATION<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":645,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[133],"tags":[586,645],"class_list":["post-34326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy-news","tag-china","tag-chinese-space-station"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/645"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34327,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34326\/revisions\/34327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}