Chinese astronauts dock with space station
The Hindu
The three-man crew will be in orbit for three months.
The first group of Chinese astronauts on Thursday entered the country’s under-construction space station, a major step in China’s plans to have a fully functioning station by next year. On Thursday afternoon, the Shenzhou-12 spaceship, carrying the three astronauts, completed an “automated rendezvous and docking” with the Tianhe module, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said, adding this "signified that for the first time the Chinese have entered their own space station”. Shenzhou-12 was launched on Thursday morning from the Jiuquan launch centre in the Gobi desert, and the astronauts entered Tianhe around six and a half hours later, the agency said.More Related News