A Chinese rocket start-up has suffered yet another launch failure, resulting in the loss of three satellites as part of a commercial constellation being assembled for global weather forecasting and earthquake prediction.
The three astronaut crew were carried to China's Tiangong space station and will replace a similar crew that have been in space for the last six months.
Three Chinese astronauts on Thursday entered the country's new space station after their spaceship successfully docked with it, just over seven hours after the launch from the Gobi Desert, in a major milestone for the Communist giant's space exploration plans and its bid to become a leading space power.
China is all set to send on Thursday the first three crew members to its under-construction space station which is expected to be Beijing's eye in the sky and will rival the ageing International Space Station (ISS).
China on Tuesday successfully launched its fifth and longest manned space mission with three astronauts, including a woman, on board 'Shenzhou-10' as part of the Communist giant's efforts to build a permanent space lab of its own by 2020
China on Saturday fired its longest and heaviest rocket, successfully sending its first woman astronaut along with two male colleagues into space to conduct the maiden manned docking of its space lab being built to rival Russia's Mir International Space Station.
A Chinese unmanned spacecraft headed off to space on Tuesday for the country's first docking mission, paving the way for the establishment of China's first space station by 2020 to rival Mir, the space lab being operated by Russian and American astronauts.
The Shenzhou 7 spacecraft, China's third manned mission, blasted off atop a 'Long March 2F' rocket at 1840 IST under clear night skies from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in Gansu Province in northwestern China.
The spacecraft, carrying two astronauts, will be launched into space from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China's Gansu Province.
Chinese astronauts Jing Haipeng, 50, and Chen Dong, 37, were blasted off into space by Shenzhou-11 (heavenly vessel) spacecraft.
Images that capture what it was like living through 2021.
The launch is the 85th mission taken by the indigenously made 'Long March' carrier rockets since 1970 and the 43rd consecutive successful one since October 1996, Xinhua news agency reported.
The launch of Shenzhou VI is scheduled for 11 am local time at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Base, in the Gobi desert in northern China
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