China's latest manned spacecraft blasted off with three "taikonauts" onboard on a 15-day mission to an experimental space lab.
The
Shenzhou 10 spacecraft, atop a Long March 2 rocket, was launched on
Tuesday from a remote site in the Gobi desert. The event that was
carried live on state television.
Once in orbit, the craft will
dock with the trial laboratory Tiangong [Heavenly Palace] 1. The crew
- two men and one woman - will then carry out tests on the module's
systems in the latest step towards the development of a space station.
They are also set to give a lecture to students back on earth.
China
successfully carried out its first manned docking exercise with
Tiangong 1 last June, a milestone in an effort to acquire the
technological and logistical skills to run a full space station that can
house people for long periods.
'Glorious and sacred'
President
Xi Jinping oversaw the latest launch. He addressed the crew before
blast-off and hailed the mission as "glorious and sacred", according to
state media.
This mission will be the longest time Chinese have
spent in space, and marks the second mission for lead crewmember Nie
Haisheng.
It is China's fifth manned space mission since 2003.
China also plans an unmanned moon landing and the deployment of a rover,
as a pretext to sending a man to the moon after 2020.
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