Wentian space lab goes into orbit

Rocket blasts off and carries craft to nearly 400 km above the ground

China launched its Wentian space laboratory on Sunday afternoon, sending the country's largest-ever spacecraft into Earth's orbit to become part of the Tiangong space station.

Encased in a 20.5-meter-long payload, the space lab was carried by a Long March 5B rocket that blasted off at 2:22 pm from a coastal service tower in the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province.

After a flight of about eight minutes, the rocket placed the craft into a low-Earth orbit nearly 400 kilometers above the ground.

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