China to launch Shenzhou XIV manned mission

The Shenzhou XIV mission - China's ninth manned spaceflight – is scheduled for launch on Sunday morning from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the northwestern Gobi Desert, according to a senior mission official.

Lin Xiqiang, deputy head of the China Manned Space Agency, said at a news conference inside the Jiuquan center Saturday morning the three crew members – Senior Colonel Chen Dong, Senior Colonel Liu Yang and Senior Colonel Cai Xuzhe -- will be sent to the Tiangong space station and stay there for half a year to continue the assembly of the colossal station.

The Long March 2F carrier rocket lifting the Shenzhou XIV spacecraft will blast off at 10:44 am, he said.

Chen will be mission commander. All crew members are from the second generation of the country's astronauts.

Before them the Shenzhou XII and XIII three-member crews lived inside the Tiangong, which is traveling in low-Earth orbit about 400 kilometers high. The Shenzhou XIII crew returned in mid-April.

In early May, the Tianzhou 4 cargo spacecraft was launched by a Long March 7 rocket from Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province, transporting nearly 6 metric tons of propellants and materials to Tiangong.

Tiangong consists of the Tianhe core module, the Tianzhou 3 and the Tianzhou 4.