China has launched their first astronaut crew to the Chinese Space Station, also known as Tiangong.
On June 16th, at 9:22 PM (Eastern time), A Long March 2F rocket lifted off from the Gobi desert in northern China. The rocket lofted the Shenzhou 12 spacecraft carrying a 3-man crew towards the Tiangong station. The 3 astronauts onboard, Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming, and Tang Hongbo, are the first Chinese astronauts to launch since 2016. This flight will be the third for Nie, who flew on Shenzhou 6 and Shenzhou 10, The second spaceflight for Liu, who was on Shenzhou 7, and the first for Tang. This trio of astronauts docked at the Tiangong station about 6 hours after launch.
Currently, the Tiangong station consists of only a single module, Tianhe, the core module. There is also a Tianzhou resupply vessel attached to the rear of the space station that contains equipment and supplies for the crew. Over the next three months, the Shenzhou 12 crew will perform at least 2 spacewalks to test out and improve systems onboard the station. At the end of their mission, the crew will land in Inner Mongolia.
China hopes to launch another 3-astronaut crew this fall, and will launch the other modules of the Tiangong space station in 2022.