spacetoday.net: Shenzhou 9 docks with Tiangong 1

Posted: Mon, Jun 18, 2012, 6:41 PM ET (2241 GMT)
Shenzhou-9 crew inside Tiangong-1 (Xinhua)

China's Shenzhou-9 spacecraft successfully docked with its Tiangong-1 lab module on Monday. Shenzhou-9 docked in automated mode with Tiangong-1 at 2:07 am EDT (0607 GMT, 2:07 pm Beijing time) Monday after what Chinese officials said was a normal approach. Two of three people on board Shenzhou-9, Jing Haipeng and Liu Wang, boarded Tiangong-1 about two hours later; the third crewmember, Liu Yang, followed a short time later after the others confirmed the conditions in the module were suitable. The three will spend up to two weeks in the module, with the exception of an undocking and manual redocking later in the week. The three astronauts will perform a number of experiments in the module during their time there.