For the first time, China has released photos of the entire structure of the Tiangong space station since its orbital placement and completion. The images were captured using a high-definition camera by the Shenzhou-16 taikonauts as they returned to Earth in October this year.

The core module of the Chinese space station, called “Tianhe”, was delivered to low Earth orbit in spring 2021. The first crew to visit here, Shenzhou-12, arrived at the space station on June 16, 2021. The Taikonauts spent 90 days on the station; this was three times longer than previous missions by Chinese space explorers. The second and third modules of the space station (Wentian and Mentian) docked with the station in 2022. Since then, the station has had teams of three taikonauts replacing each other and conducting various scientific experiments.

The operational life of the Tiangong space station is at least 10 years. The China Manned Space Program Administration (CMSA) announced plans to expand the space station with three additional modules, bringing the total number of modules to six, at the 74th International Astronautical Congress (IAC-2023) held in Baku in October.

CMSA also plans to launch a Hubble-class space telescope called Xuntian; This telescope will orbit the Earth alongside the space station and dock with the station from time to time for maintenance, repairs, refueling and upgrades.