The Chinese Docking Mechanism is a spacecraft docking mechanism based on the

Androgynous Peripheral Attach System The terms Androgynous Peripheral Attach System (APAS), Androgynous Peripheral Assembly System (APAS) and Androgynous Peripheral Docking System (APDS) are used interchangeably to describe a Russian family of spacecraft docking mechanisms, and are ...

(APAS). There have been contradicting reports by the Chinese on its compatibility with APAS. It is used by

Shenzhou spacecraft Shenzhou (, ; see ) is a Chinese spacecraft developed for the nation's crewed space program. Its design was based on Russia's Soyuz, but larger and modernized. Like Soyuz, Shenzhou is a single-use vehicle composed of three modules; a descent ...

, beginning with an uncrewed

Shenzhou 8 Shenzhou 8 () was an uncrewed flight of China's Shenzhou program, launched on 31 October 2011 UTC, or 1 November 2011 in China, by a Long March 2F rocket which lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The Shenzhou 8 spacecraft ...

, to dock to

Tiangong-1 Tiangong-1 () was China's first prototype space station. It orbited Earth from September 2011 to April 2018, serving as both a crewed laboratory and an experimental testbed to demonstrate orbital rendezvous and docking capabilities during it ...

. Subsequent crewed missions docked with the Tiangong-1,

Tiangong-2 Tiangong-2 () was a Chinese space laboratory and part of the Project 921-2 space station program. Tiangong-2 was launched on 15 September 2016. It was deorbited as planned on 19 July 2019. Tiangong-2 was neither designed nor planned to be a ...

and the

Tiangong space station Tiangong (), officially the ''Tiangong'' space station (), is a permanently crewed space station constructed by China and operated by China Manned Space Agency. Tiangong is a modular design, with modules docked together while in low Earth o ...

. Similar docking mechanism was also introduced to the Tianzhou cargo spacecraft.

Tianzhou 1 Tianzhou 1 () was the debut mission of the Tianzhou-class uncrewed cargo spacecraft. It was developed as part of the crewed space program of China. Tianzhou means "heavenly vessel" in Chinese. On 20 April 2017, Tianzhou 1 was launched by rocket ...

was the first cargo spacecraft which docked with the Tiangong-2. It has a circular transfer passage that has a diameter of . The androgynous variant has a mass of 310 kg and the non-androgynous variant has a mass of 200 kg.

References

Space program of the People's Republic of China Spacecraft docking systems {{China-spacecraft-stub

See also

References