China has launched the mission to complete the assembly of its galaxy station

The Shenzhou 14 crew will spend six months at Tiangong station, where they will oversee the addition of two modular labs to China’s current Tianhe station to orbit in April 2021.

The space shuttle flew from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert at 10:44 am local time, powered by a Long March 2F rocket.

Just 15 minutes later, the shuttle landed in Earth orbit and began opening its solar panels, sparking applause in the control rooms of Jiuquan and Beijing.

Three modules to assemble

Commander Chen Dong and his colleagues Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe had to assemble a three-module structure to be added to the current Tianhe station. The two parts named Wentian and Mengtian are scheduled to arrive in July and October respectively. Another cargo shuttle, the Tianzhou-3, remained stuck at the station.

These new modules should provide more stability, more power and better equipmentdescribed Chen, 43, as a member of the Shenzhou 11 mission in 2016.

Liu, 43, is also an experienced taikonaut. She became the first female taikonaut to reach space aboard the Shenzhou 9 mission in 2012. In the case of Cai, 46, this was her baptism in space.

The Chinese program sent its first astronaut into space in 2003, becoming the third country, after the Soviet Union and the United States, to send its own astronauts into space.

China’s space program is administered by the People’s Liberation Army, which prompted the United States to exclude China from the International Space Station.