
A crew of three astronauts from China's Shenzhou-18 mission took off on a rocket bound for the Tiangong space station Thursday, the latest mission in Beijing's space programme that aims to send astronauts to the Moon by 2030.
The crew took off on a spaceship on top of a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China's northwest at 8:59 pm local time (1259 GMT).