China has successfully launched a rocket with three astronauts on board towards the Tiangong space station, state media reported. The taikonauts, as astronauts are called in China, have to finish the space station. The team is expected to work on this for about six months.
In mid-April, three other Chinese astronauts returned after spending 183 days in space. They continued to build on Tiangong, Chinese for ‘Heavenly Palace’, and conducted experiments. They also made two spacewalks.
That was the longest manned Chinese space mission to date. The previous record was 90 days.
China has big ambitions in space. For example, the country has already placed a rover on Mars and wants to make a manned landing on the red planet in 2033. In 2019, China became the first country to put a spacecraft on the ‘back’ of the moon.
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