BEIJING (AP) — Three Chinese astronauts docked early Wednesday with their country’s space station, where they will overlap for several days with the three-member crew already onboard and expand the facility to its maximum size.
Docking with the Tiangong station came at 5:42 a.m. Wednesday, about 6 1/2 hours after the Shenzhou-15 spaceship blasted off atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
The six-month mission, commanded by Fei Junlong and crewed by Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu, will be the last in the station’s construction phase, according to the China Manned Space Agency. The station’s third and final module docked earlier this month, one of the last steps in China’s effort to maintain a constant crewed presence in orbit.
The crew of the Shenzhou-15 will spend several days working with the existing three-member crew of the Tiangong station, who will return to Earth after their six-month mission.