China seems to be gearing to launch its space station soon. The space agency will soon place the pieces of its space station Tiangong-3 into orbit. And soon after, China will also launch a new orbital observatory that will feature the same imaging capabilities as the Hubble Space Telescope.

The Chinese Space Station Telescope (CSST) telescope will have the same resolution as NASA’s Hubble telescope; however the former will have a field of view 300 times larger, enabling it to survey 40 percent of the sky in 10 years.

CSST’s main purpose

The telescope is said to be attached to an “optional” module of Tiangong-3 that can operate independently, as per Space.com. It will offer the telescope an interrupted view of the universe.

“Meanwhile, we will make it fly approximately in common orbit with the future space station,” Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China’s human spaceflight program told China Central Television. “This will help us refuel the telescope and carry out in-orbit upgrade[s] for it, so as to always keep it on the level of an international frontier.”

China has big plans for its space station. The space agency will use the CSST to study nearby asteroids and distant rocks, and also map out the structure of the universe. The space station will also observe galaxy formation and look for dark matter and energy.

Space race getting fierce

Besides, NASA is also gearing up to launch the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope. Dubbed James Webb Space Telescope, it aims to understand the cosmos better than ever before. It is capable of detecting ammonia around six gas dwarf planets after just a few orbits, which means it can potentially find life signatures on other planets in just two-three days.

Russia might soon launch its space station as well. The Russian agency might then pull out of the aging International Space Station (ISS). Roscosmos will focus on populating its space station, which would cost them as much as $6 billion.