CHINA, June 16 (China Daily/ANN) - China will launch its seventh manned space mission on Thursday morning to deploy three astronauts to the core module of the nation's permanent space station, according to a project leader.
Ji Qiming, assistant to the director of the China Manned Space Agency, told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region that the crew on board the Shenzhou XII spacecraft – Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo – will be lifted atop a Long March 2F carrier rocket at 9:22 am at the launch complex and will become the first occupants of the core module after their spacecraft docks with the module, which is traveling in a low-Earth orbit hundreds of kilometers above the ground.