Shenzhou-15: China sends new crew to Tiangong space station

BBC News:

Three Chinese astronauts have taken off for the Tiangong space station to make its first in-orbit crew handover.

It will be the second permanently inhabited space outpost, after the Nasa-led International Space Station from which China was excluded in 2011.

The fresh crew will live on the station for six months, taking over from three colleagues who arrived in June.

There will be a week-long handover period, in part to trial the station’s ability to house six astronauts.

The new crew lifted off on Tuesday in the Shenzhou-15 spacecraft or “Divine Vessel” from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert in north-west China.

It is the last of 11 missions required to assemble the station that is expected to operate for around a decade and run experiments in near-zero gravity.