【BEIJING, June 24, CMSE News】At 12: 55 June 24 (Beijing local time), Shenzhou 9 spaceship, under the precise and accurate control of the astronauts, successfully docked with Tiangong I target spacecraft. China’s first manual rendezvous & docking test achieved a complete success.

This manually controlled docking mission was carried out under sunlight. During the mission, Shenzhou 9 spaceship adopted an inverted flight mode, while Tiangong I spacecraft was in a forward flight mode. Shenzhou 9 spaceship’s astronaut Liu Wang operated the parallel moving and attitude adjusting hand lever to control the spaceship to approach slowly towards Tiangong I from the berthing point at a distance of 140 meters. After a series procedures of capturing, buffering and correction, pulling back and locking, Shenzhou 9 spaceship and Tiangong I target spacecraft physically connected to form a combined unit. During the process, astronaut Jing Haipeng and Liu Yang in Shenzhou 9 spaceship closely monitored the parameters on the spaceship’s instrument panel and the docking process.

According to the planning, the three astronauts will once again enter the Tiangong I module to continue relevant science experiments.