A Long March 2-F rocket will launch from China's Jiuquan center in the Gobi Desert and carry the Tiangong-2 into orbit. A Shenzhou-11 spacecraft will ferry the taikonauts up for a monthlong stay on the lab. While aboard, they will perform experiments related to medicine, physics and biology, such as quantum key transmission, space atomic clocks and solar storm research, according to a press release. The Tiangong-2 will then get restocked by the country's first robotic resupply mission Tianzhou-1, "Heavenly Vessel," in 2017.

China hopes to get its full space station up in the next decade, which will be about 60 tons. That's far smaller than the 420-ton ISS, points out Ars Technica, but with that colossal station's fate uncertain after 2024, there might be a future where China's is the only one in the sky.