Life support systems on Tiangong are suitable to host both the Shenzhou-20 and Shenzhou-21 crews for a few weeks.
The Shenzhou-21 spacecraft will return to Earth with the Shenzhou-20 crew.
The Shenzhou-21 spaceship docked at 3:22 am (1922 GMT Friday) after departing from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.
The Shenzhou-21 crew is expected to conduct spacewalks and install anti-debris shields on Tiangong's exterior.
Three astronauts from Shenzhou 21 were launched to the Tiangong space station on October 31 to start a six-month mission.
Currently, six crew members from Shenzhou 20 and Shenzhou 21 are on the Tianhe space station.
The Shenzhou 20 crew will hand over to the Shenzhou 21 crew.
The Shenzhou-20 crew handed over control of the Tiangong space station to the Shenzhou-21 astronauts.
The new Shenzhou-21 crew will conduct twenty-seven experiments across various scientific fields during their six-month mission.
Zhang Hongzhang, a Payload Expert on Shenzhou-21, is also flying to space for the first time and was selected in October 2020.
The Shenzhou-21 spacecraft launched on October 31st and docked with the Tiangong Space Station three and a half hours later.
The Shenzhou-21 crew is expected to go on spacewalks and install anti-debris shields on Tiangong's exterior.
Wu Fei, the Flight Engineer for Shenzhou-21, is making his first trip into space and was selected as a taikonaut in October 2020.
On November 4th, the Shenzhou-20 and Shenzhou-21 crews held a key handover ceremony to transfer management of Tiangong to Zhang Lu's crew.
Shenzhou-20 handed over the symbolic key of the China Space Station to Shenzhou-21.
The Shenzhou-21 crew consists of Commander Zhang Lu, Flight Engineer Wu Fei, and Payload Expert Zhang Hongzhang.
Zhang Lu, the Commander of Shenzhou-21, is a previously flown taikonaut who participated in Shenzhou-15 from November 2022 to June 2023.
The CSS crew rotation diagram includes information for Shenzhou-21 through Shenzhou-23.
Shenzhou 21 successfully transferred an experimental unit with four mice to the Tianwen module of the space station.
MZ-1 is not listed as a mission that will visit during Shenzhou-21.