Chinese rocket carrying first crew to new space station blasts off – Times of India

JIUQUAN: The first astronauts for China’s new space station blasted off Thursday for the country’s longest crewed mission to date, a landmark step in establishing Beijing as a major space power.
The Long March-2F rocket carrying three astronauts lifted off at 9:22 am local time (0122 GMT) in a cloud of smoke from the Jiuquan launch centre in northwest China’s Gobi desert.