Chinese crewed spaceship docked with new space station

China launched three astronauts into orbit from the Jiuquan satellite launch centre in the Gobi desert recenty. The three men, namely, Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo, are to spend three months aboard the Tianhe module some 380 km above the surace of the Earth. The primary objective for Commander Nie Haisheng and his team on the Shenzhou-12 mission is to bring the 22.5-tonne Tianhe module into service. The crew successfully docked with the space station just over seven hours after the launch. It will be China's longest crewed mission to date.