China launches Tianhe module, start of ambitious two-year station construction effort April 28, 2021 China launched a Chang Zheng 5B rocket with the Tianhe station core module to low Earth orbit, marking the start of an ambitious two year construction effort of the nation’s new multi-module space station. Liftoff of the historic mission occurred at 23:18 EDT on Wednesday, 28 April — which was 03:18 UTC on Thursday, 29 April — from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on Hainan Province island, People’s Republic of China. Tianhe seeks “harmony of the heavens” Tianhe, “harmony of the heavens”, will be the bedrock of the Chinese Space Station (CSS), like Zarya was for the International Space Station in 1998. However, Tianhe is based heavily on the Functional Cargo Block (FGB) elements of the Russian space program — which formed the core of Mir and which serves as the grounding design of the Zvezda service module of the International Space Station.