On the way to the celestial palace: Today in the early morning hours, the People’s Republic launched its first manned mission to the new space station „Tiangong“. The rocket of the type Long March 2-F brings the three Taikonauts, Tang Hongbo, Nie Haisheng, and Liu Boming (from left to right), in the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft to the space station, which is still under construction. There they are to spend three months in the station’s core module. China’s last manned space mission to date was almost five years ago.