Governing China's space station through private ordering: Legal-Technical models for IP, data, and orbital sustainability

China's Space Station (CSS) represents a new paradigm in global scientific collaboration, operating in a domain where formal international regulation is fragmented. This article investigates how the CSS can navigate the critical challenges of intellectual property (IP), data governance, and orbital sustainability. I apply a private ordering theoretical lens—an approach that examines how governance rules and enforcement mechanisms emerge from repeated interactions, technical standards, and operational practices among participants rather than solely from formal law—to argue that the CSS can pioneer a hybrid governance model, where operational rules and technical standards emerge from collaborative practice to compensate for regulatory gaps. My analysis demonstrates that for IP, a differentiated framework, patents for collaborative technologies and trade secrets for strategic assets, can reconcile private rights with the "common heritage of mankind' principle. For data, I propose a multi-tier model that technically enforces a balance between open science and data sovereignty. Finally, I critique the current "first-come, first-served' international regime for orbital resources and propose specific, enforceable private ordering-inspired reforms to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), such as a progressive filing fee structure, to deter speculation and promote sustainability. This study concludes that the CSS's success hinges on its ability to function as a site for bottom-up rulemaking, forging a legal-technical governance system that is both pragmatic for international partners and protective of national interests, offering a novel template for future technology governance in global commons.