The Shenzhou-20 spaceship took off at 5:17 p.m. local time (0917 GMT) from Gobi Desert in northwestern China, according to state media. The crew currently aboard Tiangong is scheduled to return on April 29th. The teams rotate roughly every six months. China is striving to become a leading celestial power, aiming to send a crewed mission to the Moon by 2030, build a base there and explore Mars. In order to achieve what President Xi Jinping describes as the Chinese people's "space dream", Beijing has invested billions of dollars into its space program in recent years.

The Shenzhou 20 spaceship took off as planned atop China’s workhorse Long March 2F rocket at 5:17 p.m. local time (0917 GMT). It reached the Tiangong space station about 6.5 hours later, according to the China Manned Space Agency. The rocket lifted off from the launch center in Jiuquan, on the edge of the Gobi Desert in northwestern China. The spaceship will remain in space before returning with the current three-person crew. The Tiangong, or “Heavenly Palace,” space station has made China a major contender in space, especially since it was entirely Chinese-built after the country was excluded from the International Space Station over U.S. national security concerns. China’s space program is controlled by the People’s Liberation Army, the military branch of the ruling Communist Party.

Beijing has pumped billions of dollars into its space programme in recent years, in an effort to achieve what President Xi Jinping describes as the Chinese people’s “space dream”. The world’s second-largest economy has bold plans to send a crewed mission to the Moon by the end of the decade and eventually build a base on the lunar surface. The launch of the Shenzhou-20 mission on April 24 is intended to ferry a team of three astronauts to China’s Tiangong space station. The Long March-2F rocket lifted into the air in a plume of flame and smoke at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Base in the desert of north-west China, AFP journalists saw, heralding the start of the six-month mission.