Earlier in the day, CMSA announced that Mengtian conducted transposition and redocked to the core module, thus forming the space station's basic T-shaped configuration.
"On November 3, at 15:12 local time [07:12 GMT], the Shenzhou-14 crew successfully entered the Mengtian laboratory cabin module," the CMSA said in a statement on WeChat. Initially, it docked with the front port of the Tianhe core module.
The launch of the Mengtian laboratory module took place at 3:37 p.m. local time (07:37 GMT) on October 31 from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on Hainan, using the Long March 5 carrier rocket.
The construction of the Chinese space station officially began in April 2021. The basic structure of the T-shaped Tiangong space station consists of the Tianhe core module and two laboratory modules - Wentian and Mengtian - docked to it. The station can host up to six people at the same time during a crew rotation change. The operational life of the station is 15 years and should end in 2038.