The Office of the Manned Space Flight Program of the People's Republic of China reported that this is "the first time in history that the Chinese have entered their own space station"
BEIJING, June 17. /TASS/. Three Chinese cosmonauts entered the base module of the Tianhe space station of the PRC on Thursday. This was announced on Thursday by the Office of the Manned Space Flight Program of the People's Republic of China.
"At 18:48 local time (13:48 Moscow time), the astronauts entered the Tianhe base module," the statement said. As noted, this is "the first time in history that the Chinese have entered their own space station."
On Thursday at 09: 22 Beijing time (04: 22 Moscow time) China, using the Changzheng-2-ef launch vehicle, successfully launched the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft with three astronauts on board as part of the construction of the PRC space station. After six and a half hours of flight, Shenzhou-12 successfully docked with the station. Now it consists of three elements - the base module "Tianhe", the cargo ship "Tianzhou-2" and the manned "Shenzhou-12".
China is going to build its space station in two stages (testing technologies in orbit in 2021 and conducting installation work there in 2022), each of which is planned for six launches. The launch of Shenzhou-12 is the fourth in a row at the current stage, after which one cargo ship and one manned ship will be sent to near-Earth space in the next six months. The three Chinese cosmonauts will have to spend three months monitoring environmental parameters and life support, checking the functional characteristics of the equipment, as well as carrying out extravehicular activities, including repair work with access to space outside the module.