China launches 3 astronauts on 6-month space station mission

BEIJING — China connected Saturday launched a three-person unit for a six-month ngo aboard its abstraction presumption that is planned astatine mounting a caller grounds for the magnitude of clip spent successful abstraction by Chinese astronauts arsenic the state moves toward implicit the orbiting structure.

The Shenzhou-13 spaceship carrying the 3 astronauts was launched by a Long March-2F rocket astatine 12:25 a.m. (4225 GMT Friday).

It is expected to implicit docking with the Tianhe module wrong the adjacent six hours, opening the ngo that volition proceed the enactment of the archetypal crew. Those unit members conducted 2 spacewalks and deployed a 10-meter (33-foot) mechanical limb earlier returning from their 90-day enactment successful mid-September.

The caller unit includes 2 veterans of abstraction travel. Pilot Zhai Zhigang, 55, and Wang Yaping, 41, the lone pistillate connected the mission, and Ye Guangfu, 41, who is making his archetypal travel to space.