By Ryan Woo and Liangping Gao
BEIJING (Reuters) -Three&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;astronauts&nbsp;arrived on Wednesday at China's&nbsp;space&nbsp;station&nbsp;for the first in-orbit crew rotation in&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;space&nbsp;history, launching operation of the second inhabited outpost in low-Earth orbit after the NASA-led International&nbsp;Space&nbsp;Station.
The&nbsp;spacecraft Shenzhou-15, or "Divine Vessel", and its three passengers lifted off atop a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre at 11:08 p.m. (1508 GMT) on Tuesday in sub-freezing temperatures in the Gobi Desert in northwest China, according to state television.
Shenzhou-15 was the last of 11&nbsp;missions, including three previous crewed&nbsp;missions, needed to assemble the "Celestial Palace", as the multi-module&nbsp;station&nbsp;is known in&nbsp;Chinese. The first&nbsp;mission&nbsp;was launched in April 2021.
The&nbsp;spacecraft docked with the&nbsp;station&nbsp;more than six hours after the launch, and the three Shenzhou-15&nbsp;astronauts&nbsp;were greeted with warm hugs from the previous Shenzhou crew from whom they were taking over.
The Shenzhou-14 crew, who arrived in early June, will return to Earth after a one-week handover that will establish the&nbsp;station's ability to temporarily sustain six&nbsp;astronauts, another record for China's&nbsp;space&nbsp;programme.
The Shenzhou-15&nbsp;mission&nbsp;offered the nation a rare moment to celebrate, at a time of widespread unhappiness over China's zero-COVID policies, while its economy cools amid uncertainties at home and abroad.
"Long live the motherland!" many&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;netizens wrote on social media.
The "Celestial Palace" was the culmination of nearly two decades of&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;crewed&nbsp;missions to&nbsp;space. China's manned&nbsp;space&nbsp;flights began in 2003 when a former fighter pilot, Yang Liwei, was sent into orbit in a small bronze-coloured capsule, the Shenzhou-5, and became China's first man in&nbsp;space&nbsp;and an instant hero cheered by millions at home.
The&nbsp;space&nbsp;station&nbsp;was also an emblem of China's growing clout and confidence in its&nbsp;space&nbsp;endeavours and a challenger to the United States in the domain, after being isolated from the NASA-led ISS and banned by U.S. law from any collaboration, direct or indirect, with the American&nbsp;space&nbsp;agency.
FUTURE 'TAIKONAUTS'
Leading the Shenzhou-15&nbsp;mission&nbsp;was Fei Junlong, 57, who hailed from China's first batch of astronaut trainees in the late 1990s. His previous visit to&nbsp;space&nbsp;was 17 years ago as commander of China's second-ever crewed&nbsp;spaceflight.
Fei was flanked by Deng Qingming, 56, who had trained for 24 years as an astronaut but had never been chosen for a&nbsp;mission&nbsp;until Shenzhou-15. They were joined by former air force pilot Zhang Lu, 46, also a&nbsp;space&nbsp;debutant.
The&nbsp;astronauts&nbsp;will live and work on the T-shaped&nbsp;space&nbsp;outpost for six months.
The next batch of "taikonauts", coined from the&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;word for&nbsp;space, to&nbsp;board&nbsp;the&nbsp;station, in 2023, will be picked from the third generation of&nbsp;astronauts&nbsp;with scientific backgrounds. The first and second batches of&nbsp;astronauts&nbsp;in the 1990s-2000s were all former air force pilots.
China has started the selection process for the fourth batch, seeking candidates with doctoral degrees in disciplines from biology, physics and chemistry to biomedical engineering and astronomy.
The selection process has also been opened to applicants from Hong Kong and Macau for the first time.
During the&nbsp;space&nbsp;station's operation over the next decade, China is expected to launch two crewed&nbsp;missions to the orbiting outpost each year.
Resident&nbsp;astronauts&nbsp;are expected to conduct more than 1,000 scientific experiments - from studying how plants adapt in&nbsp;space&nbsp;to how fluids behave in microgravity.
While still in its infancy compared with NASA's technologies and experience, China's&nbsp;space&nbsp;programme has come far since the mid-20th century, when the country's late leader Mao Zedong lamented that China could not even launch a potato into orbit.
(Reporting by Ryan Woo and Liangping Gao;Editing by Alison Williams, Jonathan Oatis and Gerry Doyle)

you might like

Chinese astronauts board space station in historic mission