The unmanned spacecraft,  Tiangong-1, which translates awesomely to Heavenly Palace, is set to blast off tonight from China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gansu province, marking the start of China’s first rendezvous and docking mission. That guy is set to take off between 13h16 and 13h31 GMT.

The spacecraft should level out at an orbit of around 350 kilometres from the planet. This is a pretty big deal for China’s space ventures – although there’s still a whole lot of catch-up to be played.

Said space administration spokesperson, Wu Ping:

China remains in the initial stage of making breakthroughs in manned space flight technologies compared with the United States and Russia… We believe that international exchanges and cooperation in the field of aerospace engineering should be intensified on the basis of mutual benefit, peaceful use and common development.

Tiangon-1 will orbit for two years, and has at least three docking procedures scheduled during that time.

[Source: TGD]