After nearly 30 years of preparations that included five unmanned flights and six crewed missions, China launched the first, and central, component of its space station, the Tianhe core module, in April 2021, and began to send astronauts to fly with it to perform trial operations and prepare for the arrival of other parts.

In the second half of 2022, the Wentian and Mengtian science modules were launched to dock with Tiangong, completing the space station's construction phase.

The Tiangong is one of the largest and most advanced structures ever deployed in Earth's orbit and is the only operating space station independently built by a single nation.

So far, eight crews have been sent to man the space station, including the incumbent Shenzhou XIX team, who arrived at the outpost in late October.