Shenzhou XXI blasts off, on way to space station

The three Shenzhou XXI mission crew members are scheduled to arrive at the Tiangong space station early on Saturday morning, several hours after they embarked on their six-month orbital journey.

Mission commander Senior Colonel Zhang Lu, spaceflight engineer Major Wu Fei and payload specialist Zhang Hongzhang got off the ground at 11:44 pm on Friday as their spaceship's carrier, a 20-story-tall Long March 2F rocket, thundered up into skies from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China's Gobi Desert.

Soon after crossing the Karman line, at an altitude of 100 kilometers above sea level, which is the start of outer space and the threshold for orbital flight, the Shenzhou XXI spacecraft separated from the rocket and activated the rapid autonomous rendezvous-docking mode.