China’s first space station in the Tiangong program – scheduled for completion in 2022 – will rely exclusively on LEDs for illumination. Thanks to their compact size, light weight, long life and energy efficiency, LEDs are today found just about everywhere on earth, from smartphones to solar-powered street lamps. But it was China’s space program that pioneered their use in space, according to a recent report by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). LEDs made their debut in space when China’s manned spacecraft Shenzhou 7 carried three astronauts to undertake the first Chinese spacewalk in 2008. Chinese-developed LEDs consume less than three-quarters of the energy of the metal-halide lamps used by other nations’ space programs.