CHINA’S Shenzhou-14 crewed spaceship successfully docked with the combination of the space station core module Tianhe, the Tianzhou-3 cargo craft and the Tianzhou-4 cargo craft yesterday, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

The spaceship, launched yesterday morning, conducted a fast automated rendezvous and docked with the radial port of the Tianhe module at 5:42 p.m., after autonomously changing its orbit for six times, said the CMSA. The whole process took approximately seven hours.

Three astronauts aboard Shenzhou-14 — Chen Dong, Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe — entered the Tianhe module as planned.

During a six-month mission, the trio will cooperate with the ground team to complete the assembly and construction of the Tiangong space station, developing it from a single-module structure into a national space laboratory with three modules — the core module Tianhe and two lab modules Wentian and Mengtian.

The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, was lifted off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest China at 10:44 a.m. yesterday.

About 577 seconds after the launch, Shenzhou-14 separated from the rocket and entered its designated orbit.

This is the 23rd flight mission since the launch of the country’s manned space program, and the third crewed mission for China’s space station project.

The Tianhe core module was launched in April 2021, and the Wentian lab module is set to be launched in July and Mengtian in October.

The Shenzhou-14 crew will live and work together with the Shenzhou-15 crew for multiple days before returning to Earth in December.

One of the noteworthy tasks for the Shenzhou-14 crew is to test and operate the large and small mechanical arms.

The core module is mounted with a 10-meter-long big mechanical arm, and the Wentian lab module with a small one. The weight and length of the small mechanical arm are about half of that of the large one, but it is quite flexible and can perform operations with greater precision.

The crew will, for the first time, be aided by the small mechanical arm to get out of the space station, Huang Weifen, chief designer of China manned space program’s astronaut system, said.

The small arm can also be captured by the large one to form a combined arm that is capable of performing extravehicular operations with better accuracy at a larger range.

The Tiangong space station is designed to be a versatile space lab, capable of accommodating 25 experiment cabinets for scientific exploration.

The experiment cabinets installed on Wentian can support experiments on life and ecology and biotechnology. It can also simulate variable gravity environments to support the comparative study on the biological growth mechanism in different gravity conditions.

The Mengtian lab module is equipped with experiment cabinets to study the effects of microgravity, covering the physics of fluids, material science, combustion science and basic physics.                    (Xinhua)

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