As planned, the team left for the cosmos from the Jiuquan center (northwest), located in the Gobi desert, the Manned Spaceflight Agency confirmed.

After entering the orbit, the spacecraft is now expected to automatically dock with the station’s core module, called Tiangong.

This is the tenth manned mission in China’s history and, like the previous ones, it will last half a year, but with the novelty that this time the astronauts will coincide with the colleagues present there, before returning to Earth in December.

Their main task will be to finish building China’s space station, but they will also test the facility’s ability to accommodate the rotation of different manned missions when they meet for a week with the members of the Shenzhou-14 and then make the handover to the Shenzhou-16.

The Tiangong will operate in low-Earth orbit at an altitude of 340-450 kilometers, while its lifetime is designed for 10 years.

However, experts believe it will be able to last more than 15 years with proper maintenance and repairs.

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