China's latest crewed mission is on its way to the Tiangong space station after a Friday (Oct. 31) launch from the Gobi Desert.

A Long March 2F rocket topped with the Shenzhou 21 spacecraft lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China Friday at 11:44 a.m. EDT (1544 GMT, or 11:44 p.m. Beijing time).

The spacecraft is expected to dock with the front port of the Tianhe core module of the Tiangong space station around 3.5 hours after liftoff, adopting a fast automated rendezvous and docking mode that shaves around three hours off the time for the Shenzhou 20 mission.

Shenzhou 21 is carrying commander Zhang Lu, 48, a veteran of the 2022 Shenzhou 15 mission, and two rookie astronauts, Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang, who were chosen from China's third batch of astronauts,

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