[imagesource:wikimediacommons]

An Australian company called HEO Robotics has released images showing how China built its Tiangong space station in orbit around the earth.

The company specialises in non-Earth imaging, which uses space-based sensors to take images of objects of interest in orbit such as satellites.

The firm released the video to demonstrate their sensors’ capabilities by showing the step-by-step assembly of China’s three-module Tiangong space station.

It’s also a good reminder that the International Space Station isn’t the only ‘home away from home’ orbiting our planet.

The video shows the space station’s core module first being visited by cargo vessels and a crewed Shenzhou spacecraft before two experiment modules are added to the complex to form a ‘T-shape’.

“Using our non-Earth imaging capability, we witnessed a story unfold over an 18-month timeframe. Each stage you see was verified with a photo taken from another satellite in space,” the company posted on X.

HEO Robotics says its services help “defense, governments and commercial operators visually monitor space objects with our in-orbit flyby inspection technology.”

Tiangong is currently inhabited by the three-person Shenzhou 17 crew but China aims to keep the orbital outpost occupied for at least a decade and potentially utilise the station for commercial purposes.

Watch the video below:

[source:space.com]