China’s space station takes final shape with arrival of Mengtian module

The third and final module arrived at China’s space station at 4.27am on Tuesday, about 13 hours after lift-off from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Centre in the southern province of Hainan, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said.

The research module Mengtian used its own propulsion to reach orbit about 380km (236 miles) above the Earth before joining Tianhe, the Tiangong station’s core module, and Wentian, another research module.