Chinese Space Lab To Be Launched

For the Geo Quiz, we’re stopping along the route of the ancient Silk Road. We’re looking for a city in Gansu province in north-central China. The city’s name translates to “Wine Spring.”

And it’s huge, even by Chinese standards. In fact, it’s the world’s largest city by area, stretching for more than 300 miles from east to west.

And it’s about 60 miles from a satellite launch center, where an unmanned space laboratory is set to lift off in a few days.

The name of the city is Jiuquan. And the name of the orbiter that’s about to go up is the Tiangong.

The Chinese are said to be planning to use the space lab as a test-bed for two docking missions. Dean Cheng of the Heritage Foundation in Washington says China is launching the Tiangong mainly for political and diplomatic reasons.