China launches Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceship

China launched the Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceship on Sunday, which will send three astronauts to its orbiting Tiangong space station.

The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.

The Shenzhou-23 crew consists of mission commander Zhu Yangzhu, along with astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Li Jiaying, or Lai Ka-ying in Cantonese. The three astronauts are, respectively, a flight engineer, a spacecraft pilot, and a payload specialist.

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