BEIJING, June 5, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - China on Sunday launched a rocket carrying
three astronauts on a mission to complete construction on its new space
station, the latest milestone in Beijing's drive to become a major space
power.

The trio blasted off in a Long March-2F rocket at (0244 GMT) from the Jiuquan
launch center in northwestern China's Gobi desert, said state broadcaster
CCTV, with the team to spend six months expanding the Tiangong space station.

Tiangong, which means "heavenly palace," is expected to become fully
operational by the end of the year.

China's heavily promoted space programme has already seen the nation land a
rover on Mars and send probes to the Moon.

The Shenzhou-14 crew is tasked with "completing in-orbit assembly and
construction of the space station," as well as "commissioning of equipment"
and conducting scientific experiments, state-run CGTN said Saturday.

Led by air force pilot Chen Dong, 43, the three-person crew's main challenge
will be connecting the station's two lab modules to the main body.

Dong, along with fellow pilots Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe, will become the second
crew to spend six months aboard the Tiangong after the last returned to earth
in April following 183 days on the space station.

Tiangong's core module entered orbit earlier last year and is expected to
operate for at least a decade.

The completed station will be similar to the Soviet Mir station that orbited
Earth from the 1980s until 2001.

- Space ambitions -

The world's second-largest economy has poured billions into its military-run
space programme, with hopes of having a permanently crewed space station by
2022 and eventually sending humans to the Moon.

The country has made large strides in catching up with the United States and
Russia, whose astronauts and cosmonauts have decades of experience in space
exploration.

But under Chinese President Xi Jinping, the country's plans for its heavily
promoted "space dream" have been put into overdrive.

In addition to a space station, Beijing is also planning to build a base on
the Moon, and the country's National Space Administration said it aims to
launch a crewed lunar mission by 2029.

China has been excluded from the International Space Station since 2011, when
the United States banned NASA from engaging with the country.

While China does not plan to use its space station for global cooperation on
the scale of the ISS, Beijing has said it is open to foreign collaboration.

The ISS is due for retirement after 2024, although NASA has said it could
remain functional until 2030.