The lab modules Wentian and Mengtian are to be launched in July and October, respectively. We're one step closer to becoming a space superpower,' the 25-year-old said.Д¬onstruction began in April last year with the launch of the first and largest of its three modules - Tianhe - the living quarters of visiting astronauts.

'Of course I'm super excited, and I'm so proud as a Chinese. 'I watched the launch of Shenzhou-5 when I was a primary student, and now we have Shenzhou-14,' Zanna Zhang, a social media developer, told Reuters. The completion of the structure, about a fifth of the International Space Station (ISS) by mass, is a source of pride among ordinary Chinese people, and caps President Xi Jinping's 10 years as leader of the ruling Communist Party.ДЄ Long March-2F rocket, which was used to launch China's first crewed spaceflight on the Shenzhou-5 mission in 2003, lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert in northwest China at 10.44am on Sunday (local time) with the spacecraft Shenzhou-14, or 'Divine Vessel', and its three astronauts, a live broadcast by state television showed. It will also flag the start of permanent Chinese habitation in space. The space station, when completed by the year-end, will lay a significant milestone in China's three-decades long manned space programme, first approved in 1992 and initially code-named 'Project 921'.

Photo: cnsphoto via Reuters China has sent three astronauts on a six-month long mission to oversee a pivotal period of construction of its space station, whose final modules are due to be launched in the coming months. The Long March-2F carrier rocket, carrying the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft and three astronauts, takes off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center for a crewed mission to build China's space station.

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