See-off ceremony held for Shenzhou XII mission astronauts
China launched its seventh manned spaceflight on Thursday morning, sending three astronauts to the core module of its permanent space station.
A 20-story-tall Long March 2F carrier rocket blasted off at 9:22 am at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China's Gobi Desert, hurtling into the blue sky with the Shenzhou XII spacecraft on top of the gigantic rocket.
After about 10 minutes, the vehicle placed the 8-metric-ton spaceship in a low-Earth orbit about 390 kilometers above the ground.
[Video by Zhao Lei]
General Xu Qiliang, a vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission and the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the Chinese military, along with other senior officials watched the mission's launch at the Jiuquan center.
Shenzhou XII, which is carrying three astronauts – Major General Nie Haisheng, Major General Liu Boming and Senior Colonel Tang Hongbo, is set to rendezvous and then dock with the core module, named Tianhe, or Harmony of Heavens, in a matter of hours. Then the crew will float into the module and start their three-month mission inside the craft, the first, and central, section of China's space station, named Tiangong, or Heavenly Palace.
