Tianzhou 10 enters final prelaunch stage at site

The combination of the Tianzhou 10 cargo spacecraft and a Long March 7 Y11 carrier rocket was vertically transferred to the launch area at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in Hainan province on Friday, marking the mission's entry into the final stage before launch, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

The agency said the facilities and equipment at the launch site are in good condition, and follow-up work, including prelaunch functional checks and joint tests, will be carried out as planned. The mission is scheduled to be launched in the coming days at an appropriate time, it said.

The vertical transfer indicates that assembly and testing of the spacecraft and rocket in the technical area have been completed. After the combination reaches the launch pad, it will undergo a series of tests in the launch area, including rocket-tower coordination, tank replacement and air-tightness checks, to prepare for propellant loading and launch.

Encased in the fairing at the top of the rocket, Tianzhou 10 is scheduled to carry nearly 6.3 metric tons of supplies to China's space station, the Tiangong. The cargo will mainly support the in-orbit work and daily life of the Shenzhou XXIII and Shenzhou XXIV astronaut crews. It includes more than 220 items for astronaut systems, the space station system, the cargo spacecraft system and space application programs, as well as about 700 kilograms of propellant.

A key item on board will be a third new-generation extravehicular spacesuit. Two such suits were previously delivered by Tianzhou 9, and the new delivery will complete the replacement of spacesuits aboard the Tiangong.

The spacecraft will also carry a new space treadmill and six scientific experiment payloads weighing about 280 kg in total. The payloads will be used for frontier space science experiments in areas such as fluid physics under microgravity and aerospace technology. It will be the largest number of upward payload projects carried by a Tianzhou mission since the start of the space station construction phase.

Most of the cargo has already been loaded. A small number of temperature-sensitive items, including fresh vegetables and fruits, refrigerated consumable packages, and biological and cell experiment samples, will be loaded shortly before launch. Researchers have conducted full-process rehearsals for sample preparation, loading and integration to ensure the final installation work proceeds smoothly.

The Tianzhou 9 cargo spacecraft undocked from Tiangong on Wednesday and reentered the atmosphere on Thursday, with its debris falling into a designated area of the South Pacific, the agency said.

yangzekun@chinadaily.com.cn