Beijing: China plans to expand its low-earth orbiting space station, potentially more than doubling in size, as the rival International Space Station (ISS) is set to be phased out by 2031.
Currently, China's Tiangong and the ISS, a collaborative project involving NASA along with the space agencies of Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada, are in orbit.
NASA plans to retire ISS, the largest human-made structure in space and serve as a continuously occupied laboratory orbiting Earth, which will make the Chinese space station one of its kind orbiting Earth.
China built its space station after it was reportedly excluded from the International Space Station (ISS) over concerns that its space programme is manned by the People's Liberation Army (PLA).
It is currently the only country to have a space station which became operational in 2022. The station is relatively small compared to the football court-sized ISS, in which several international astronauts have carried out over 3,000 experiments since its operationalisation in 1998.
NASA plans to retire the ISS in early 2031, using a dedicated de-orbit vehicle, being developed by SpaceX, to guide it into a controlled re-entry over the South Pacific, according to reports.