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Chinese spacemen before the start
Photo: Roman Pilipey / EPA
China wants to become a great power not only on earth but also in space and is investing billions in its space programs.
Last night, three Chinese space travelers made their way to China's space station, which was under construction.
A spaceship with Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo on board took off from the Jiuquan space station in the Gobi desert on Thursday morning.
The Chinese state television showed live images from the start.
The trip to the new "Tiangong" space station is the first manned Chinese space mission in five years.
During their stay in space, the astronauts, who are led by the 56-year-old commander Nie Haisheng, will test important functions of the core module and also carry out scientific experiments.
It was not until the end of May that a space transporter with equipment had successfully docked on the station's core module.
The Tianzhou-2 unmanned transporter had fuel, food and other supplies on board for the station.
At the end of April, China put the »Tianhe« module, the first and central module of the new space station, into orbit.
It orbits the earth at a distance of 350 to 390 kilometers.
The space station should be ready for operation in the coming year.
Mars is also in focus
An international use as with the International Space Station ISS is not planned.
However, Beijing has declared that it is open to foreign cooperation in space exploration.
China's space station, which will end up being called »Tiangong« (Heavenly Palace), will be less than half the size of the ISS with 240 tons.
"Sky Palace" is more comparable to the former Russian space station "Mir", say experts.
Most recently, the People's Republic was successful on a mission to Mars: the Zhurong rover landed on the Red Planet two weeks ago.
An ambitious lunar mission had ended in December;
a capsule with two kilograms of samples returned safely to earth.
There had recently been anger about China's handling of its own space junk.
jok / dpa
