Tianzhou-10 cargo spacecraft arrives at Tiangong space station

HELSINKI — China launched the Tianzhou-10 cargo spacecraft late Sunday, docking with the Tiangong space station hours later to deliver supplies, equipment, experiments and propellant.

A Long March 7 rocket lifted off at 8:14 p.m. Eastern, May 10 (0014 UTC, May 11) from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on the southern island of Hainan, with the Tianzhou-10 resupply spacecraft separating from the rocket around 10 minutes later. 

Tianzhou-10 docked with the aft port of the space station’s Tianhe core module at 1:11 a.m. Eastern (0511 UTC) May 11, with the Shenzhou-21 astronauts to later begin cargo transfer tasks. 

The spacecraft carried a new extravehicular spacesuit, a treadmill, around 700 kilograms of propellant, consumables for the future Shenzhou-23 and Shenzhou-24 crews, and more than 220 spare parts and maintenance components, according to the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO).

Tianzhou-9 had separated from Tiangong May 6 and made a controlled reentry later that day UTC, making way for the imminent arrival of Tianzhou-10. 

Tianzhou-10 carries five life sciences payloads as part of comprehensive research into the effects of the space environment on zebrafish embryos, mouse embryos, and artificial embryos derived from stem cells. The new payloads focus on space environment damage to early-stage mammalian embryos, the regulatory mechanisms behind bone loss and myocardial changes under microgravity, and the development of artificial human embryos in space.

The spacecraft also carried flexible encapsulated monocrystalline silicon solar cell samples developed by Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology (SIMIT), a research center under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

The mission is the first Tianzhou resupply to Tiangong following an emergency response triggered by suspected debris damage to the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft in late 2025. The Shenzhou-20 crew later returned to Earth in the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft, with the on-standby Shenzhou-22 spacecraft then launched to Tiangong to provide a lifeboat for the Shenzhou-21 crew.

The next crewed mission, Shenzhou-23, will see the next crew of three astronauts travel to Tiangong and take over from the Shenzhou-21 crew, who have stayed an extra month beyond their planned half a year in space thanks to fresh supplies delivered as part of the Shenzhou-22 launch. Shenzhou-23 could launch late this month. CMSEO released the mission patch May 11. 

The current crew of Zhang Lu, Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang arrived at Tiangong October 31, 2025, aboard Shenzhou-21. They conducted the mission’s third spacewalk April 16. They will return to Earth after handing over to the incoming and as-yet unnamed Shenzhou-23 crew around the end of the month.

The first Tianzhou spacecraft flew in 2017. Since Tianzhou-6, the spacecraft has had a 20 percent greater pressurized module volume, while also increasing overall cargo capacity to more than 7,000 kilograms. CMSEO is also backing the development of low-cost cargo options to provide new options for resupplying Tiangong. The agency is also looking to expand the three-module space station in the future.

The launch was China’s 27th orbital launch of 2026, with the country reported to be targeting more than 100 launches across the year.