Mission Reports

China’s Shenzhou 14 spacecraft glided to an automated docking at the Tiangong space station Sunday, hours after launching with three astronauts to begin a six-month mission that will see the outpost triple in size with the arrival of two new 20-ton research modules.

The next three-person crew heading to the Chinese Tiangong space station lifted off from northwestern China at 10:44 p.m. EDT Saturday (0244 GMT Sunday) on a fast-track rendezvous with the orbiting complex. Commander Chen Dong and astronauts Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe will aid in the construction of the Chinese space station.

Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard rocket propelled six people to an altitude of more than 60 miles over West Texas Saturday, including the first Mexican-born woman to fly to space. The company has now flown five missions carrying 25 people to suborbital space, and aims to nearly double that figure by the end of this year.

Three Chinese military pilots are ready for launch Saturday on a Long March 2F rocket to begin a six-month expedition to help expand China’s space station in low Earth orbit, a mission slated to include the arrival of two modules and multiple spacewalks.

China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group launched the first nine satellites of a planned constellation of 240 spacecraft Thursday, starting the deployment phase of a project intended to provide navigation and inter-vehicle communications for autonomous cars.