It carried three People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps (PLAAC) taikonauts on board a Shenzhou spacecraft.

Shenzhou 15 was the fourth spaceflight to the Tiangong space station, and the third with a standard mission duration of approximately six months.

[9] On 9 February 2023, the first scheduled spacewalk of Shenzhou 15 was carried out by Fei Junlong and Zhang Lu, with Deng Qingming assisting the pair from inside the Tianhe core module.

The two exited through the airlock of the Wentian lab module and completed a series of tasks, including the installation of a fourth external pump (Z01-04) on the Mengtian lab module and other tasks related to Mengtian's payload airlock, which allows science payloads and small satellites to be deployed using the station's robotic arms.

[10][11][12] The second spacewalk was publicly announced on 2 March 2023 with no official date given (although rumors suggest it may have occurred on 28 February),[13] with Fei Junlong and Zhang Lu on EVA while Deng Qingming once again assisted from aboard the station.

According to some Chinese-language sources, the repetitive motion of detaching and re-attaching a safety tether to exterior handrails on the station strained Fei Junlong's upper body during the initial transfer to the work site.

The uncontrolled reentry also raised criticism over proper disposal of space debris to avoid the associated danger to artificial satellites as well as people on the ground.