China says it's close to completing its independent space station as Beijing and Moscow intensify a space rivalry with the US

China said it's sending a new batch of astronauts in the coming days to space station Tiangong as it nears completion. Here, students watch a televised lecture by three astronauts currently on Tiangong on March 23, 2022.

Xue Lei/Future Publishing via Getty Images

• China is in the final stages of completing its Tiangong space station, according to state media.
• Tiangong's completion could intensify a space rivalry that pits China and Russia against the US.
• The US-led International Space Station does not involve China, and may lose Russia as a partner.

China is on track to complete construction of its space station by the end of the year, according to Chinese state media.

On Sunday, Chinese authorities said they were preparing a spacecraft that will carry a new batch of three astronauts to Tiangong, per the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSE). The launch is expected to happen in the coming days.

Thereafter, China plans to send two laboratory modules to the space station in July and October, state-owned CGTN reported on Sunday, quoting information provided by the CMSE.

These modules and astronauts are the final steps in Tiangong's construction, CMSE officials said at a press conference in April. 

"After we complete construction of the space station in orbit at the end of this year, we will start developing use cases and applications for the station that will last over the next ten years," Hao Chun, the agency's director general, said, according to a transcript from the press conference. 

A brewing space rivalry

The completion of Tiangong, or "Celestial Palace" as it's called in Chinese, is likely to intensify a brewing space rivalry with Beijing and Moscow on one side and Washington on the other.

The International Space Station (ISS) is the only space station that's currently fully operational. The US, Russia, Japan, Europe, and Canada collaborate on the ISS, according to NASA. 

China was effectively shut out from the ISS after Congress passed a law in 2011 banning NASA from collaborating in any way with China.

When Tiangong becomes operational, China is expected to be the only country to operate its own space station.

However, Russia could be looking to break away from the ISS and take part in China's Tiangong. With sanctions related to the Ukraine war biting Russia's economy, Moscow is making it more difficult for American astronauts to collaborate with their Russian counterparts on the ISS. "Some administrative difficulties" are becoming more apparent as astronauts from both sides train together, Susan Helms, a former NASA astronaut who sits on a panel advising NASA, told SpaceNews this month.

In contrast, Russia and China have been looking to cooperate on space initiatives. CMSE officials said at an October press conference that China looked forward to working with Russia and some other space agencies on Tiangong. The CMSE did not mention the US as a potential partner.

Moscow officials have also touted the potential of Chinese-Russian ties in space exploration while hitting back at what they view as the US' attempts at "NATO-in-space" projects, according to a December article from Chinese state media Global Times.

Meanwhile, a competing initiative from the US to spur global cooperation on space exploration continues to gain traction. On May 10, Colombia became the 19th country to sign the Artemis Accords, a Washington-led initiative that proposes a governance structure for space exploration, per NASA.

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