Chinese astronauts dock with their space station for six-month stay

A Chinese space ship carrying a three-person crew docked with its orbiting space station Wednesday as the country seeks to expand its exploration of outer space in competition with the United States, even as it looks for cooperation from other nations.

The team of two men and one woman will replace the astronauts who have lived on the Tiangong space station for the last six months, conducting a variety of experiments and maintaining the structure. They are expected to stay until April or May of next year. 

Early Wednesday morning, China declared the launch and entry into outerspace a “complete success.”

China built its own space station after being excluded from the International Space Station, mainly because of U.S. concerns over the People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese Communist Party’s military arm’s overall control over the space program. China’s moon program is part of a growing rivalry with the U.S. and others, including Japan and India.

Besides putting a space station into orbit, the Chinese space agency has landed an explorer on Mars. It aims to put a person on the moon before 2030, which would make China the second nation after the United States to do so. It also plans to build a research station on the moon and has already transferred rock and soil samples from the moon in a first for any nation in decades, and placed a rover on the little-explored far side of the moon in a global first.

The U.S. still leads in space exploration and plans to land astronauts on the moon for the first time in more than 50 years, though NASA pushed the target date back to 2026 earlier this year.



(AP Photo Ng Han Guan)