China's Shenzhou-15 spaceship with three taikonauts on board has docked with the country's space station.

The crewed spacecraft, launched on Tuesday night, conducted a fast automated rendezvous and docked with the front port of the Tianhe core module of the China Space Station (CSS) at 5:42 a.m. Beijing Time on Wednesday, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

The entire docking process lasted about 6.5 hours.

The Shenzhou-14 astronauts at the space station welcomed the Shenzhou-15 crew upon their arrival. This is the first time that Chinese astronauts aboard the station welcomed a crewed spaceship.

The two teams will work together for about a week before the Shenzhou-14 crew head back to Earth.

The three Shenzhou-15 crew members are Fei Junlong, Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu. They will stay at the space station for six months.

The Shenzhou-15 mission is the last step for the construction phase of the CSS, marking the first crew handover in the newly completed three-module space station.

With the arrival of the Shenzhou-15 spaceship, the CSS has expanded to its largest configuration of three modules and three spaceships, with a total mass of nearly 100 tonnes.

China has been developing fast docking technology over the years to push forward its space exploration.

The fast automated rendezvous and dock refer to two spacecraft connecting in the orbit, which is one of the three key technologies in manned missions in space - the other two are extravehicular activity and sending taikonauts to space.

China has shortened the docking time from 44 hours for the first time when Shenzhou-8 docked with Tiangong-1 in 2011 to about only two hours when Tianzhou-5 docked with the space station early this November.

"We reduced the count of the orbit changes as well as cut down the time interval of each orbit change to achieve the goal of fast docking,” said Yao Jian, chief designer of the docking system for manned spaceships at the 8th Academy of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.

Milestones of China's fast docking technology

-November 3, 2011

After 44 hours, China's Tiangong-1 and Shenzhou-8 successfully carried out its first rendezvous and docking. China became the third country in the world that independently mastered the automatic rendezvous and docking technology in space.

-June 18, 2012

China applied docking technology in the manned mission for the first time when Shenzhou-9 successfully docked with Tiangong-1.

-May 30, 2021

The Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft docked with the rear port of the Tianhe core module, one of the key modules of China Space Station. The whole process lasted about 8 hours.

-June 17, 2021 
The Shenzhou-12 manned spacecraft docked with the Tianhe core module and the whole process lasted only 6.5 hours.

-November 12, 2022

Tianzhou-5 successfully docked with the rear port of the Tianhe core module of the space station in a record-breaking time of 2 hours.

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