Ready to launch: Astronauts (from left) Jiang, Hongbo and Shengjie attend a press conference at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in China’s northwestern Gansu province. — AFP
Jiuquan: China will send its youngest-ever crew of astronauts to the Tiangong space station this week as Beijing pursues plans for a manned mission to the Moon by the end of the decade, officials said.
Tiangong is the crown jewel of Beijing’s space programme, which has also landed robotic rovers on Mars and the Moon and made China the third country to put humans in orbit.
