China's Space Station
“God 10” launching space laboratory built (Google translation of article in Chinese)
“Ming Pao – the Jiuquan Satellite Launch CUI Ji-jun, director of the Center recently revealed that this year the launch of manned spacecraft “God 7”, “God 8” and “God 9” will be unmanned spacecraft, “God 10″ would be a set People spacecraft, launched after the craft and the docking target, after the completion of docking will create space laboratory.”
Editor’s note: “Shenzhou” translates as “God”. This concept of a small modular space station is not exactly new. Astronautix.com features a photo of some sort of Chinese space station and a history of its development. It would seem that Shenzhou 7 will leave its free-flying Orbital Module in orbit as has been the case recent flights. Then, over the next several years, two unmanned Shenzhou flights 8 and 9 will be launched and will dock with the Shenzhou 7 orbital module. After that Shenzhou 10 will be launched with a crew and dock with the mini-space station. This would be a human-tended facility – not one with permanent inhabitants.