The Tianzhou 9 robotic cargo ship was launched on Tuesday morning in Hainan province, marking the first and only cargo mission to visit China's Tiangong space station this year.

“天舟9号”机器人货船于周二上午在海南省发射，这是今年首次也是唯一一次访问中国天宫空间站的货运任务。

With the cargo vessel attached above it, the Long March 7 carrier rocket lifted off at 5:34 am from a launch service tower at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan's southeastern coast, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

据中国载人航天局称，长征七号运载火箭于凌晨5点34分从海南东南沿海文昌航天发射中心的发射服务塔发射升空，货船附在上面。

Following a short flight, the rocket placed the Tianzhou 7 into its preset low-Earth orbit and the robotic vessel's solar wings soon unfolded, marking the successful completion of the launch mission, the agency said in a news release. About three hours later, the spacecraft docked with the space station's Tianhe core module.

该机构在一份新闻稿中表示，经过短暂的飞行，火箭将天舟7号送入预设的近地轨道，机器人飞船的太阳能机翼很快展开，标志着发射任务的成功完成。大约三个小时后，飞船与空间站的天河核心舱对接。

As the 17th spaceship, and the eighth cargo craft, connected with Tiangong, Tianzhou 9 is tasked with delivering propellants, science payloads and necessities for the Shenzhou XX astronauts, who have stayed in orbit for nearly three months, with their successors on the Shenzhou XXI flight scheduled to launch this winter.

作为与天宫相连的第17艘宇宙飞船和第8艘货运飞船，天舟9号的任务是为神舟二十号宇航员及其继任者运送推进剂、科学有效载荷和必需品，神舟二十一号宇航员已在轨道上停留了近三个月，计划于今年冬天发射。

Designed and built by the China Academy of Space Technology in Beijing, Tianzhou 9, like its predecessors in the Tianzhou series, boasts the biggest carrying capacity and the highest transport efficiency of its kind in the world, according to mission planners.

据任务规划者介绍，由北京中国空间技术研究院设计和建造的“天舟9号”与“天舟系列”的前身一样，拥有世界上同类产品中最大的运载能力和最高的运输效率。

The vessel is carrying hundreds of packages with a combined weight of nearly 6.5 metric tons, including several science and technology apparatus and two new spacewalk suits.

该船载有数百个包裹，总重量近6.5公吨，包括几台科技设备和两套新的太空行走服。

Orbiting Earth at about 400 kilometers above the ground, Tiangong is now the only space station in orbit that is independently operated by a single nation. The colossal outpost has three permanent parts — a core module and two science capsules — and is regularly connected to several visiting crew and cargo spaceships.

天宫在距离地面约400公里的轨道上绕地球运行，现在是轨道上唯一一个由一个国家独立运营的空间站。这个巨大的前哨站有三个永久性部分——一个核心模块和两个科学舱——并定期与几艘来访的机组人员和货运飞船相连。

cargo mission

n.货运任务

/ˈkɑːɡəʊ ˈmɪʃən/

core module

n.核心模块

/kɔːr ˈmɒdjuːl/