Three Chinese astronauts have flown to the Tiangong space station for their first-orbit crew handover.
It will be the second permanently manned space outpost after the NASA-led International Space Station, from which China was kicked out in 2011.
The fresh crew will stay at the station for six months, taking over from three colleagues arriving in June.
There will be a week-long handover period to test the station’s ability to house six astronauts.
The new crew took off Tuesday aboard the Shenzhou 15 spacecraft, or “Divine Vessel,” from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China’s Gobi Desert.
It is the last of 11 missions required to assemble the station, which is expected to operate for about a decade and conduct experiments in near-zero gravity.
The outgoing crew is expected to return to Earth early next month.
A spokesman for the China-Mandated Space Administration said the new crew would focus on installing equipment and facilities around the space station. Construction is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
China’s space program has previously landed robotic rovers on Mars and the Moon, making it the third country to put humans in orbit.
