China welcomes all UN member states to jointly utilize its space station

VIENNA -- China announced on Monday that all member states of the United Nations are welcome to cooperate with China to jointly utilize its future China Space Station (CSS).

"CSS belongs not only to China, but also to the world," said Shi Zhongjun, China's Ambassador to UN and other international organizations in Vienna.

"All countries, regardless of their size and level of development, can participate in the cooperation on an equal footing," he said.

Interested public and private organizations, including institutes, academies, universities and private enterprises with scientific orientations, can identify their appropriate models of cooperation on board CSS, may it be the growth of a space plant, or will even accommodation of an astronaut, said the ambassador.

CSS is expected to be launched by 2019, and complete and brought into operation by 2022. Consisting of one core module and two experiment modules, the CSS will have the capacity to accommodate up to three astronauts at the same time.

"Through the vehicle of CSS, we would like to build up a model of sincere mutual beneficial cooperation among countries in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space," Shi said.

As a developing country itself, China stands ready to help other developing countries in their development of space technology and space capacity building in particular, said the ambassador.