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China cargo spacecraft starts independent operation

June 28, 2017

Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-21 16:53:55|Editor: Mengjie 

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BEIJING, June 21 (Xinhua) -- After flying with the Tiangong-2 space lab for about two months, China's Tianzhou-1 cargo spacecraft on June 21 separated from the space lab and entered a stage of independent operation.


Controlled from Earth, Tianzhou-1 separated from Tiangong-2 at 9:47 a.m. Wednesday, remained 120 meters from the lab and then left to pursue its own course when conditions were deemed appropriate.


In this stage, Tianzhou-1 will orbit about 390 km above the Earth, conducting a variety of experiments.


It will also release a tiny satellite, CubeSat, and will carry out an automated fast-docking with Tiangong-2 and conduct the third refueling of the space lab.