China to send cargo spacecraft to Tiangong station, followed by new crew

China plans to send a cargo spacecraft to dock at its new space station next month, to be followed by the Shenzhou-13 in October, which will take three astronauts into orbit and return with the current crew, according to a source.

The person familiar with the space programme on Monday said engineers at the Wenchang launch site in Hainan province were carrying out final testing on the Tianzhou-3 cargo spacecraft and Long March-7 Y4 rocket in preparation for the mid-September launch.