Tianzhou 4 () was the fourth mission of the Tianzhou-class uncrewed cargo

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle that is designed spaceflight, to fly and operate in outer space. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including Telecommunications, communications, Earth observation satellite, Earth observation, Weather s ...

, and the third resupply mission to

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 ...

carrying 5 tons of cargos and 1 ton of propellant. It is the largest load capacity cargo spacecraft that is on active duty. It launched on 9 May 2022, docking successfully with 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 ...

at the aft port 6 hours after launch. Like previous Tianzhou missions, the spacecraft launched from the

Wenchang Satellite Launch Center The Wenchang Space Launch Site ( zh, 文昌航天发射场, links=no) is a rocket launch site located in Wenchang on the island of Hainan, in China. Formally a suborbital test center, it currently serves as China's southernmost spaceport. ...

Hainan Hainan is an island provinces of China, province and the southernmost province of China. It consists of the eponymous Hainan Island and various smaller islands in the South China Sea under the province's administration. The name literally mean ...

, China on a

Long March 7 The Long March 7 (), or Chang Zheng 7 in pinyin, abbreviated LM-7 for export or CZ-7 within China, originally Long March 2F/H or Chang Zheng 2F/H, nicknamed Bingjian (), is a Chinese liquid-fuelled launch vehicle of the Long March family, dev ...

rocket. It is a part of the construction of the

, and is the third cargo resupply mission to the already launched

Tianhe core module ''Tianhe'' (), officially the ''Tianhe'' core module (), is the first module to launch of the Tiangong space station. It was launched into orbit on 29 April 2021, as the first launch of the final phase of Tiangong program, part of the China ...

(CCM).

Spacecraft

The Tianzhou cargo spacecraft has several notable differences with the

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 ...

from which it is derived. It has only three segments of

solar panels A solar panel is a device that converts sunlight into electricity by using photovoltaic (PV) cells. PV cells are made of materials that produce excited electrons when exposed to light. These electrons flow through a circuit and produce direct ...

(against 4 for Tiangong), but has 4 maneuvering engines (against 2 for Tiangong).

Mission history

On May 7, 2022, the combination of the Tianzhou-4 cargo spacecraft and the

Yao-5 carrier rocket are transferred vertically to the launch area. At 17:56 UTC on May 9, 2022, the Long March 7 Yaowu carrier rocket carrying the Tianzhou-4 cargo spacecraft was successfully launched at the Wenchang Cosmodrome in China. At about 18:06 UTC, the spacecraft and the rocket successfully separated and entered the predetermined orbit, and at 18:23 UTC, the spacecraft's solar sail board began to work. At 00:54 UTC on May 10, 2022, Tianzhou-4 adopted the autonomous rapid rendezvous and docking mode to successfully dock with the space station Tianhe and the rear port of the core module. On November 9, 2022, at 06:55 UTC, Tianzhou-4 separated from the space station in preparation for deorbiting, making way for the upcoming Tianzhou 5. It reentered the Earth's atmosphere and burned up as planned on 14 November 2022.

Carriers

Tianzhou-4 loaded astronaut systems, space station systems, space application fields, cargo spacecraft systems a total of more than 200 pieces (sets) of cargo, including cargo package cargo and direct installation cargo, carrying about 750 kg of supplemental propellant, the total weight of uplink materials of about 6,000 kg, for the

Shenzhou 14 Shenzhou 14 () was a Chinese spaceflight to the Tiangong space station, launched on 5 June 2022. It carried three People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps (PLAAC) Astronaut#Taikonaut, taikonauts on board a Shenzhou (spacecraft), Shenzhou spacecr ...

crew of 3 people 6 months on orbit to stay, space station assembly and construction, space science experiments and so on to provide material support. One of the cargoes was a torque gyroscope weighing 170 kilograms, the heaviest of all the materials currently in transit. A small CubeSat stored onboard Tianzhou-4, Zhixing-3A, was successfully deployed on 13 November 2022.

References

{{Portal bar, China, Spaceflight Tiangong program Tianzhou (spacecraft) 2022 in China Spacecraft launched in 2022