A Long March-7 Y9 carrier rocket carrying the Tianzhou-8 cargo spacecraft blasted off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China’s island province of Hainan on Friday.
The Long March-7 Y9 rocket is China’s new-generation medium-sized carrier rocket, featuring high reliability, safety and environmentally friendly, pollution-free technology. It is 53.1 meters long, 3.35 meters in diameter, and equipped with four boosters, offering a payload capacity of 14 tonnes to low Earth orbit. This enables the rocket to meet the precise orbital insertion requirements for docking the Tianzhou cargo spaceships with the space station.
The launch of Tianzhou-8 cargo spaceship is not only a key mission for the Long March-7 Y9 rocket but also a significant upgrade to the Tianzhou cargo spaceship series. Designed specifically to support the construction and operation of China’s space station, the Tianzhou-8’s main tasks include providing supplies, transporting cargo and refueling the space station, and returning waste materials from the space station to Earth. The Tianzhou-8 is 10.6 meters long and has a maximum diameter of 3.35 meters. It will transport approximately 6 tonnes of supplies.
The Tianzhou-8 has been improved compared to previous cargo spaceships in terms of cargo capacity and variety. With optimized design, the cargo capacity has increased by 102 kilograms, and a broader range of supplies is being carried. The Tianzhou-8 will deliver supplies for the Shenzhou-19 and Shenzhou-20 astronaut crews, including their daily essentials, scientific experiment materials, consumables for environmental control, as well as personalized gifts for astronauts.
This mission also includes 458 kilograms of scientific application materials, supporting 36 scientific experiments in fields such as biotechnology, materials science and microgravity fluid physics.
Notably, the Tianzhou-8 is carrying “lunar soil bricks,” made from materials that simulate lunar soil, for exposure experiments to test their mechanical, thermal, and radiation resistance properties. This experiment will provide valuable data for the future construction of lunar bases and support China’s deep-space exploration and lunar missions.