China launches manned space mission Shenzhou-10 - June 11,2013

China has launched its latest Shenzhou manned space mission.This mission, the fifth manned venture by China and scheduled to be the longest, is designated Shenzhou-10.

Three astronauts blasted away from the Jiuquan base in Inner Mongolia on a Long March 2F rocket at 17:38 Beijing time (09:38 GMT)
Wang Yaping (L), Nie Haisheng (C) and Zhang Xiaoguang (R)

 
The commander, Nie Haisheng, and his crew, Zhang Xiaoguang and Wang Yaping, plan to spend just under two weeks at the orbiting Tiangong space lab

China's Shenzhou-10 astronauts return to Earth

 

A capsule carrying three Chinese astronauts has landed safely after a 15-day mission in space.

The astronauts travelled on the Shenzhou-10 craft to China's space laboratory, the Tiangong-1.
They completed manual docking exercises and astronaut Wang Yaping gave a video lecture to students back on Earth.
The Shenzhou-10 is China's fifth manned space mission and came 10 years after China first sent an astronaut into space.

State TV showed the capsule touching down in grassland in the Inner Mongolia region at around 08:07 local time (00:07 GMT).