China’s third and final module docked with its permanent space station to further a more than decade-long effort to maintain a constant crewed presence in orbit, as its competition with the U.S. grows increasingly fierce.
The name of China’s final space station module, Mengtian, translates to dreaming of the heavens. The roughly 18-meter-long module will link to the Tianhe core module and the Wentian experiment module to complete China’s Tiangong space station.