Development of the Soviet Salyut Space Station and Its Implications for China.

The United States and the Soviet Union competed for the priority of the world's first space station in the context of the Cold War in the 1960s and 1970s. The Soviet Union built the world's first space station, Salyut (Салют, salute in English), in a short period of time, using a compartment of the already ready military orbital station “Almaz” (Алмаз) on which the control system of the Soyuz spacecraft was installed. The design of Salyut was based on the principle of "maximizing the use of available resources," with an emphasis on simplicity, versatility and incremental modifications, which enabled the Soviet Union to achieve a high level of performance in a limited time frame and to win the competition with the United States. Since then, the Soviet Union had continued to develop the Salyut space stations series, on the basis of which built Mir (Мир), a multi-module building block permanent space station. Russia has also made a significant contribution to the construction and operation of the International Space Station (ISS). China's Tiangong (天宫), as the world's third multi-module space station assembled and built in orbit, had made reference to the structural features of Mir and ISS, introduced a large number of new technologies and designs, and made its own distinctive features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]