[LINK] "China space capsule lifts off on 15-day mission"

[rfmcdonald]

Via James Nicoll, I learned of China's newest manned space mission, the Shenzhou 10.

China's latest manned spacecraft successfully blasted off Tuesday on a 15-day mission to dock with a space lab and educate young people about science.

The Shenzhou 10 capsule carrying three astronauts lifted off as scheduled at 5:38 a.m. ET from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert.

It is China's fifth manned space mission and its longest. The spacecraft was launched aboard a Long March 2F rocket and will transport the crew to the Tiangong 1, which functions as an experimental prototype for a much larger Chinese space station to be launched in 2020. The craft will spend 12 days docked with the Tiangong.

On the heels of Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield's wildly popular YouTube videos from the International Space Station, the Chinese crew plans to deliver a series of talks to students from aboard the Tiangong.

The craft carried two men, mission commander Nie Haisheng and Zhang Xiaoguang, and China's second female astronaut, Wang Yaping.