6 bedrooms, 3 living rooms, 2 bathrooms! The "cosmic Versailles" of China's space station is here

How big will China's space station be when it's completed?

Manned Spaceflight Engineering, Fifth Academy, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation

Hou Yongqing, deputy chief designer of the space station system, said

After the Chinese space station is completed

It will have 6 bedrooms, 3 living rooms and 2 bathrooms

It is fully capable of accommodating six astronauts.

Image source: CCTV-1 "Let's Talk" video screenshot

Netizen: This is the romance of space

A human-centered space station

As the deputy chief designer of the space station system, Hou Yongqing and her team have implemented the people-oriented concept to the end. She said that when the space station was first designed, the designers had full communication with the astronauts. The astronauts hoped to be able to call their families directly on the space station, so the designers designed it for this purpose.

As a closed environment, the space station is where astronauts have to work and live for up to half a year, so the comfort requirements are very high. For this reason, designers installed WiFi in the space station. "Many devices in the space station can be controlled by mobile phones, which makes astronauts feel no different from the ground," said Hou Yongqing.

Hou Yongqing said that the space station has put a lot of effort into recycling, for example, the sweat and urine of astronauts can be recycled and turned into drinking water and oxygen. In this way, the resources transported from the ground can be greatly reduced.

A space station with ingenious details

After seeing the Chinese space station, many people sighed: It is much cleaner than the International Space Station. How is this done?

Hou Yongqing said that a material management system was established at the beginning of the design of the space station. Each item has a unique QR code. When you need an item, you just scan the code: first, you know where the item is, and second, you can count how much you have used and how much to send up later. "The astronauts also have higher requirements. They want to find items by voice, such as 'Xiaohe, Xiaohe, where is my so-and-so?'"

How the space station classifies garbage has also attracted a lot of attention. Hou Yongqing introduced that the garbage generated on the space station is classified according to its hazard level, and different garbage is handled in different ways. For example, kitchen waste and feces need to be added with preservatives to prevent them from deteriorating and swelling; ordinary garbage such as paper towels and plastic bags can be compressed to reduce its volume, so as to store more garbage.

Hou Yongqing said that now astronauts can see the beautiful pictures of the Earth from the space station. Looking to the future, she hopes that in the near future, Chinese astronauts can see the Earth from the moon, which will be a different picture and a different feeling.

Photo by Tang Hongbo

Previously, Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China's manned space program and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, also said in the CCTV program "The Reader":

"China's space industry has two principles: one is to never bring problems into space, and the other is to never consume redundancy on the ground."

The rigorous pursuit of quality and safety by aerospace personnel relies on such specific actions. Behind this is the attitude of Chinese aerospace personnel in pursuit of high quality, high reliability and high responsibility for aerospace safety.

Image source: CCTV-1 "The Reader" video screenshot

We are in this universe

Just a speck of dust in the morning sky

So we think

The future of humanity depends on

How much do we know about the universe?

——Carl Sagan, Cosmos (excerpt)

Salute to the Chinese astronauts!

Comprehensive sources: People's Daily Online, CCTV.com, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, etc.