Chinese astronauts enter Tiangong Space Station

Context

Recently, three Chinese astronauts floated into the country’s new Tiangong space station for a three-month mission.

The trio blasted off in a Long March-2F rocket at 0814 IMT from the Jiuquan launch centre in north-western China’s Gobi desert.
The team is tasked with “completing in-orbit assembly and construction of the space station”, as well as “commissioning of equipment” and conducting scientific experiments.
The spacecraft docked at the Tiangong station after about “seven hours of flight”.
China’s heavily promoted space programme has already seen the nation land a rover on Mars and send probes to the Moon.

Tiangong means “Heavenly Palace”.
It was 10.4 metres long and 3.35 metres wide at its widest point, and weighed 8.6 metric tonnes.
It was launched on September 15, 2016 and, in late 2016, hosted two Chinese astronauts for 30 days in what was China’s longest manned space mission so far.
The recently decommissioned space lab followed the Tiangong-1, China’s first space station, which crashed into the southern Pacific Ocean on April 1, 2018 after Chinese scientists lost control of the spacecraft.
China had launched Tiangong-1 in 2011 as a proof-of-concept of technologies for future stations.
The Tiangong will be fully operational by the end of 2022.

The significant feature of Tiangong is its two robotic arms.
The US has previously expressed concern over its ability to grab objects including satellites from space.
The 10-meter-long arm was in action previously seen in action successfully grabbing and moving a 20 tonne Tianzhou-2 cargo ship in a test.
One of the noteworthy tasks for the Shenzhou-14 crew is to test and operate the large and small.
The small arm is quite flexible and can perform operations with greater precision.