Reuters
China on Thursday sent three astronauts to its permanently inhabited space station for a six-month stay, in a regular rotation of Chinese astronauts onboard the "Tiangong" orbiting high above the Earth's atmosphere. The spacecraft Shenzhou-18, or "Divine Vessel", and its three passengers lifted off atop a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China at 8:58 p.m. (1258 GMT), according to state media. Leading the six-month mission was 43-year-old Ye Guangfu, who last went to Tiangong, or "Heavenly Palace" in Chinese, in October 2021 in China's second crewed mission to the station.