China science, technology news summary -- April 26

BEIJING, April 26 (Xinhua) -- The following is a summary of published science and technology news of China.

CREW ROTATION IN SPACE STATION

The three astronauts aboard China's Shenzhou-18 spaceship have entered the country's space station and met with another astronaut trio on Friday, starting a new round of in-orbit crew handover.

The Shenzhou-17 crew opened the hatch at 5:04 a.m. (Beijing Time). The three space station occupants greeted the new arrivals, and they took group pictures.

The space get-together of the two crews kicked off the fourth in-orbit crew rotation in China's space station.

SHENZHOU-18 SPACESHIP DOCKING

China's Shenzhou-18 manned spaceship successfully docked with the space station combination early on Friday morning, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

The spaceship made a fast, automated rendezvous and docking with the radial port of the space station's core module Tianhe at 3:32 a.m. (Beijing Time).

The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China Thursday (Beijing Time).

BARLEY RESEARCH

Chinese and German scientists are working closely to promote international collaboration on barley research, according to the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS).

Scientists from the Institute of Crop Sciences (ICS) of the CAAS and Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Germany have jointly published research into germplasm resource research and utilization, as well as bioinformatics and genomics technology of barley.

The China-German cooperation and exchange project on the population genomics analysis of barley adaptation, jointly initiated by the two institutes, has been running well since its launch in November 2022.