Shenzhou crew setting up Tiangong station

Crew members of the Shenzhou XIV mission spent a busy month inside the Tiangong space station after they arrived at the outpost, getting ready to oversee the station's in-orbit assembly, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

The agency said on Wednesday that the first assignment for the three astronauts－mission commander Senior Colonel Chen Dong, Senior Colonel Liu Yang and Senior Colonel Cai Xuzhe－was to establish an inhabitable environment inside the station.

They re-configured the ventilation, air purification, water recycling and treatment as well as other life-support equipment and conducted sampling and testing of air, water and microorganisms inside Tiangong, it said in a news release.