China announces plans to build 1km-long spaceship in orbit in latest twist in space race with US
A HUGE spaceship up to 1km long could be built by China as the country's space agency is working on a plan for the build.
The National Natural Science Foundation revealed a four year programme is in place to try and work out if they could build such a large ship in orbit.
This would require sending components up to space on rockets and somehow assembling the spaceship in zero gravity conditions.
China's foundation said it was looking at “space equipment for future exploration”.
It has the goal of having a “long-term stay” in orbit.
If the a 1km spaceship was built, that would make it 10 times bigger than the International Space Station.
China's state media has revealed that the plans are complicated.
Components of the craft would need to be as light as possible to make construction viable.
A large spaceship has never been built in orbit before.
China is currently assembling its own space station, just like the ISS, in orbit.
The main section of China’s Tiangong space station was put in orbit back in April.
It's floating 236 miles above the Earth.
China has planned another 11 missions in the next year and a half to finish off building the space station.
The country also landed a rover on Mars this year as it competes with countries like the US in a space race to make discoveries on the Red Planet.
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