Three Chinese astronauts have arrived at the Tiangong space station

Three Chinese astronauts have arrived at the Tiangong space station. After a three-and-a-half-hour flight, the Shenzhou-23 spacecraft carrying the taikonauts docked smoothly with the Chinese space station on Monday morning, the Chinese Manned Space Administration announced, according to the Xinhua news agency.

The Shenzhou-23 space capsule took off from the Jiuquan Cosmodrome in China's Gobi Desert, images from Chinese state television showed. The capsule was transported into space by the Langer Marsch 2-F carrier rocket. Ten minutes after launch, the Shenzhou-23 separated from the rocket. "The astronauts are in good condition and the launch was a complete success," said the space agency.

Astronaut is supposed to stay in space for a year

Astronauts Zhu Yangzhu, Zhang Zhiyuan and Li Jiaying were on board. Li Jiaying is the first person from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to take part in a Chinese space mission, according to the Chinese space agency CMSA. The crew is supposed to replace the current crew of Zhang Lu, Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang on the space station.

In addition to scientific experiments, the crew will also undertake spacewalks and load and unload cargo, according to the Chinese space agency.

This mission will be the first time that a Chinese astronaut will stay on the station in space for around a year. Which member of the crew this will be will only be decided later. China probably wants to use the longer stay to investigate how long-term missions affect the human body. This is also seen as a key step in China's efforts to send humans to the moon by 2030.