Shenzhou-19 crew blasts off for China's Tiangong space station

Three Chinese astronauts including the country's only woman spaceflight engineer blasted off on a "dream" mission to the Tiangong space station in the early hours of Wednesday.

The new Tiangong team will carry out experiments with an eye to the space program’s ambitious goal of placing astronauts on the Moon by 2030 and eventually constructing a lunar base. The spacecraft Shenzhou-19 and its three-crew lifted off atop a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China at 4.27am, according to state media.