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| China's future space station will weigh about 60 tonnes and is set to be assembled in space around 2020, in time for the likely retirement of the ISS. It will offer more opportunity for collaboration among nations, with room for international experiments and possibly space for foreign astronauts. |
Mastery of know-how is not always solid until proven by repeated experiments. With a string of sophisticated maneuvers, docking, de-linking and re-docking, as part of its current Shenzhou-8 space mission, China has laid a solid stepping stone for deep space exploration. The autonomous docking know-how now enables China to build space stations, re-supply them, transfer astronauts and rescue them.
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