China has sent two male and one female astronauts into space on a rocket to work on a future space station that will stay there for six months. This will be China's longest space mission ever.
According to the British news agency Reuters, on Friday, the Long March F2 rocket carrying the Shinzo 13 spacecraft took off from the Jacuan Satellite Launching Center in Gansu Province.
China began construction of the space station in April this year with the launch of Tianhe, the first and largest of the station's three modules. It is slightly larger than a bus and will accommodate people.
Shinzo 13 is the second of four missions to complete the space station by 2022. In the first mission, completed in September, the three astronauts stayed in Tianhe for 90 days.
In the current mission, astronauts will test key technologies and robotics for assembling the space station, checking on-board life support systems and other scientific experiments.
The commander of the mission is Zai Zheng, who made the first spacewalk from China in 2008. Shinzo 13 is their second space mission.
"The most challenging thing is to stay in space for six months," Zhao Zigang told a news conference on Thursday.
He is accompanied by Wang Yaping and Yi Guangfu, who are 41 years old.
Wang Yaping is a former Air Force pilot who traveled to space in 2013. She is the second Chinese female astronaut after Liu Yang. This is the first space mission for a third astronaut, Yi Guangfu.
When the crew returns in April, China plans to send six more missions into space, including deliveries to the second and Sierra space stations and two final missions with crew.
The United States banned NASA from working with China on the International Space Station (ISS), after which China began work on building its own space station.
The ISS will retire in a few years, after which China will have the only space station in ground orbit.
In 2013, China became the third country after Russia and the United States to send its first astronaut into space.
