China's Shenzhou-12 Spacecraft Docks With Core Module Of Country's Orbital Station

China's Shenzhou-12 Spacecraft Docks With Core Module of Country's Orbital Station

China's Shenzhou-12 manned spacecraft carrying three astronauts successfully docked on Thursday with the Tianhe core module of China's Tiangong orbital station

BEIJING (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th June, 2021) China's Shenzhou-12 manned spacecraft carrying three astronauts successfully docked on Thursday with the Tianhe core module of China's Tiangong orbital station.

China's Long March 2F carrier rocket with the Shenzhou-12 manned spacecraft was launched from the Jiuquan space center in Gansu province in northwestern China at 09:22 local time (01:22 GMT).

After the launch, Shenzhou-12 successfully entered the assigned orbit and at 15:54 local time it autonomously docked with the front port of the Tianhe core module. The docking took 6.5 hours. Astronauts are supposed to spend three month in the Tianhe core module before returning to the Earth in September aboard a re-entry capsule.