The Shenzhou X spacecraft, with three astronauts on board, blasted off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu province and entered its designated orbit on Tuesday. At noon on Thursday, it successfully docked with the Tiangong-1, a target orbiter and space module.

The latest launch, China's fifth manned mission within just 10 years of its first such mission into space, demonstrates the country's steady progress in manned space operations. The smooth launch also ushers in the first application-oriented flight of the Shenzhou spacecraft, which was preceded by years of both unmanned and manned test spaceflights since 1999.

Shenzhou X and the upgraded Long March-2F carrier rocket constitute China's Earth-to-space transport system, which can ferry astronauts and supplies between Earth and the in-orbit Tiangong-1 space module and support scientific experiments in the target orbiter.