In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese astronaut Chen Dong, right, waves as he walks ahead of fellow astronauts Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe during a sendoff ceremony for the Shenzhou-14 crewed space mission at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China on Sunday, June 5, 2022. China on Sunday launched the new three-person mission to complete work on its permanent orbiting space station. (Li Gang/Xinhua via AP)


BEIJING (AP) — China on Sunday launched a new three-person mission to complete assembly work on its permanent orbiting space station.

The Shenzhou 14 crew will spend six months on the Tiangong station, during which they will oversee the addition of two laboratory modules to join the main Tianhe living space that was launched in April 2021.

Their spaceship blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert at 10:44 a.m. (0244 GMT) atop the crewed space flight program’s workhorse Long March 2F rocket.

Commander Chen Dong and fellow astronauts Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe will assemble the three-module structure joining the existing Tianhe with Wentian and Mengtian, due to arrive in July and October. Another cargo craft, the Tianzhou-3, remains docked with the station.

Xinhua