Tiangong: Life and Science Aboard China's Space Station

Orbiting about 400 kilometers above Earth, Tiangong — “Heavenly Palace” — is China’s space station and one of only two permanently crewed outposts in orbit. Assembled between 2021 and 2022 from the Tianhe core module and the Wentian and Mengtian laboratory modules, it has been continuously inhabited ever since.

Life aboard runs in shifts. Crews of three taikonauts travel up and back on Shenzhou spacecraft, overlapping mid-mission so skills and station knowledge pass from one crew to the next. Cargo craft deliver supplies several times a year, and astronauts spend their days running experiments, maintaining systems and exercising two hours daily against muscle loss.

The science portfolio is broad: protein crystallization for drug research, combustion in microgravity, plant growth cycles, cold atom clocks and fundamental physics. Through a partnership with the United Nations, Tiangong has opened its racks to experiments from other countries, and selected international payloads have already flown.

You do not need to be a scientist to see it. Like the International Space Station, Tiangong reflects sunlight and crosses the night sky as a bright, steady point of light. Tracking apps can tell you when it passes over your city — a rare sight of a Chinese spacecraft from your own doorstep.