The Chief commander of China’s manned space program has announced that the launch of the Shenzhou-11 manned spacecraft was a success. The spacecraft is in orbit, and solar panels have fully opened. The Shenzhou-11 spacecraft is set to dock with the Tiangong-2 space lab on Wednesday.
China’s Shenzhou 11 “heavenly vessel” launched Monday (7:30 p.m. Sunday ET) from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert. The launch was shown on state broadcaster CCTV.
This is China’a longest-ever crewed space mission. On board are two astronauts — Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong. They will dock with the Tiangong-2 space lab, which was launched last month.
Jing and Chen will remain in space for a total of 33 days, with 30 of those spent conducting experiments related to medicine, physics and biology in the space lab.
