|
|
The three Chinese astronauts onboard the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft were lifted into space with a Chinese Long March-2F rocket.
The spacecraft held Jing Haipeng, the mission commander and the first Chinese astronaut to be sent into space and to return safely, along with Liu Wang and Liu Yang, the first female Chinese astronaut to go into space.
The trio of Chinese astronauts (or taikonauts) is on their way to the prototype space station, the Tiangong 1 module.
The launch of the mission is found on the YouTube video (see below): " [China] Launch of Manned Shenzhou 9 Spacecraft on Long March 2F Rocket".
Its caption states, "It is the beginning of a much larger space station that is being built by the Chinese with the schedule of having it operational by the end of the 2010s."
And, "A Chinese Long March 2F rocket successfully launched the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft today, June 16th 2012 at 10:37 UTC. On board two male and the first Chinese female astronauts are on board as they travel in orbit."
"In the next few days they will manually dock to the Chinese Spacelab Tiangong-1 which was launched late last year. Their mission will last 2 weeks as they become the first Chinese manned vehicle to dock in orbit."
