China’s Shenzhou 20 mission has docked with the Tiangong space station. The crew of three astronauts launched from Jiuquan and arrived on April 24. Their stay will last six months. This is China’s ninth crewed mission to Tiangong.

China sent three astronauts to its permanently inhabited space station on Thursday in its 15th crewed spaceflight and 20th overall in the Shenzhou program that started more than three decades ago. The spacecraft Shenzhou-20 and the crew lifted off atop a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China at 5:17 p.