On Sunday morning, three Chinese astronauts, or taikonauts, arrived at the Tianhe core module of the unfinished Tiangong space station, where they will stay for six months to assist finish its construction. The Shenzhou 14 spacecraft launched from the Gobi Desert’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Saturday at 10:44 PM ET (10:44 AM local time) and docked with Tianhe at 5:42 AM ET (5:42 PM local time).
Chen Dong, Cai Xuzhe, and Liu Yang, the first Chinese woman in space on the country’s Shenzhou 9 mission in 2012, are among the three-person crew. While in orbit, the crew will undertake numerous spacewalks and prepare the station for the arrival of two new lab modules, the Wentian next month and the Mengtian in October. According to Space.com, the two modules will join opposing sides of the Tianhe core module to form a T-shaped station smaller than the International Space Station (ISS).
China hopes to finish building Tiangong by the end of this year, with the Xuntian telescope module set to launch in 2023. Shenzhou 14 is China’s third crewed trip to the International Space Station after the Tianhe module launched in April 2021. This latest trio is slated to welcome the Shenzhou 15 crew aboard the station near the end of this year, marking the station’s first six-person crew.
