Three Chinese astronauts arrived at China’s Tiangong space station on Wednesday for their first in-orbit crew change-over.
Their spacecraft, Shenzhou-15, lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre on Tuesday, docking with the station – one of just two inhabited outposts in low-Earth orbit alongside the NASA-led International Space Station – more than six hours later.
The Shenzhou-14 crew, who arrived in early June, will return to Earth after a one-week handover that will establish the station’s ability to temporarily sustain six astronauts, another record for China’s space programme.
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The “Celestial Palace” is the culmination of nearly two decades of Chinese-crewed missions to space.
China’s manned space flights began in 2003 when a former fighter pilot, Yang Liwei, was sent into orbit in a small bronze-coloured capsule, the Shenzhou-5, and became China’s first man in space.
Astronauts at the space station are expected to conduct more than 1,000 scientific experiments – from studying how plants adapt in space to how fluids behave in microgravity.
- Reuters with additional editing by Sean O’Meara
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