3 More Chinese Astronauts Enter Space Station

Three Chinese astronauts aboard Shenzhou-18 spaceship on Friday successfully entered China's space station, state-run media said.

The astronauts were welcomed by their colleagues on the Shenzhou-17 mission, Xinhua News Agency reported.

The six astronauts will live and work together for about five days.

On Thursday, the Shenzhou-18 spaceship lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center atop a Long March 2F rocket at 8.59 p.m. (1259GMT).

Earlier, a sending-off ceremony for the three taikonauts, the term used for Chinese astronauts, was held at the center.

Astronauts Ye Guangfu, Li Cong and Li Guangsu will remain in orbit for six months and are scheduled to return to the Dongfeng landing site in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in late October this year.

During the mission, the astronauts' main jobs will be space experiments and tests in cutting-edge fields such as aerospace medicine, basic physics, material science and life science.

The Shenzhou-17 crew has stayed in the orbiting Tiangong space station for nearly six months and will return after handover work to Shenzhou-18 crew.

Shenzhou-18 is the 32nd flight mission of China's manned space program and the third manned mission during the application and development stage of China's space station.

*Writing by Islamuddin Sajid -