The Shenzhou-14 crew successfully entered the Wentian lab module at 10:03 a.m. BJT on Monday, the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) announced.

Wentian, the first lab module of China's space station, has successfully docked with the combination of the Tianhe core module, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

The Wentian module docked with the front port of Tianhe at 3:13 am Monday (Beijing Time), after it entered the planned orbit and completed state setting.

The whole process took approximately 13 hours, the CMSA said.

It is the first time that China's two 20-tonne-level spacecrafts conducted rendezvous and docking in orbit, and also the first time that space rendezvous and docking were carried out during the astronauts' in-orbit stay in the space station, the CMSA said.

After docking, the Shenzhou-14 crew will conduct various operations to connect the two modules together. Not only the spacecrafts themselves will be connected, the power supply, communication, data handling, thermal control and life support systems will also get integrated together.

Wentian also serves as a backup control station to the Tianhe core module in case of emergencies or malfunctions. It has all the same flight-control devices as those inside the core module to operate the entire Tiangong station.

After Wentian is connected to the Tianhe module, its airlock cabin will replace the one on Tianhe to become the main place for astronauts to put on their spacewalk suits and move out of the space station.

Inside the gigantic lab, there are eight scientific cabinets. They will mainly be used for biological and life science studies and can support research on the growth, aging and genetic traits of plants, animals and microbes in the environment of space.