http://www.space.com/19960-china-space-station-europe-cooperation.html

Europe May Work With China on Space Station
Rob Coppinger, SPACE.com Contributor
Date: 26 February 2013 Time: 12:00 PM ET

China aims to establish a large manned space station within the next decade, officials have said, and the latest reports suggest that this outpost could host not only Chinese astronauts, but European spaceflyers as well.

A plan is afoot for China and Europe to cooperate on the venture, which might see the European Space Agency (ESA) building technologies, including a rendezvous and docking system, for the station, in exchange for opportunities for its astronauts to visit the facility.

China plans to have the space station running by 2020. Both the station and China's manned spacecraft Shenzhou could use ESA's International Berthing and Docking Mechanism (IBDM), because of a problem with the Russian system the Chinese have been using until now.

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"It was originally bouncing off," Bob Chesson, an ESA human spaceflight advisor, told SPACE.com. "Essentially they have to ram this [Shenzhou] thing in and they are very worried that if you assemble a station like that, you basically will have all sorts of structure fracture mechanics problems, that type of thing."

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Joint astronaut training, Chinese lessons and Chesson's third working group, the exchange of payload facilities and experiments, all point to preparations for future missions for ESA crew on China's spacecraft. Chesson said that ESA is "seriously looking" at providing experiments for future Tiangong missions.

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