The Shenzhou XXIII crew has entered the Tiangong space station and met with the outgoing Shenzhou XXI astronauts.

The new arrivals — mission commander and spaceflight engineer Colonel Zhu Yangzhu, spacecraft pilot Colonel Zhang Zhiyuan, and science payload specialist Lai Ka-ying — were launched by a Long March 2F carrier rocket at 11:08 pm Sunday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China.

After flying about three and a half hours, their spaceship docked with the front port on the Tianhe core module, the central piece of the Chinese space station, at 2:45 am Monday, according to the China Manned Space Agency.