Astronauts in the orbiting Tiangong-1 lab module received their first e-mail from Earth on Tuesday afternoon, the Beijing Aerospace Control Center confirmed.

The e-mail containing photos, text and videos was sent through a special communication channel between the control center and the lab module, a statement from the center said.

Through this communication channel, astronauts can maintain instant contact with Earth, which facilitates their work and contributes to the quality of their spare time, the statement said.

The three astronauts, including the country's first woman in space, entered the cabin of Tiangong-1 on Monday afternoon, becoming the first group of Chinese to enter an orbiter in space, shortly after a successful automatic docking procedure between the orbiter and the Shenzhou IX spaceship.

Deng Yibing, chief engineer of the astronaut training center, told Xinhua that the astronauts had been busy checking the equipment and doing experiments over the past day.

The environment inside the orbiter has been quite comfortable, with the temperature at 22 to 23 C and the humidity at 40 percent, Deng said.

Although they experience 16 sunrises and sunsets every 24 hours as the orbiter circles Earth every 90 minutes, astronauts wake up and rest in line with Earth time.

"They got up at 6 am Beijing time today and will go to bed in the evening," Deng said.

The three will take turns sleeping, he said.

(China Daily 06/20/2012 page4)