China launched its seventh manned spaceflight on Thursday morning, sending three astronauts to the core module of its permanent space station.

A 20-story-tall Long March 2F carrier rocket blasted off at 9:22 am at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China's Gobi Desert, hurtling into the blue sky with the Shenzhou XII spacecraft on top of the gigantic rocket.
After about 10 minutes, the vehicle placed the 8-metric-ton spaceship in a low-Earth orbit about 390 kilometers above the ground.

The three astronauts are commander Nie Haisheng, a 56-year-old veteran who participated in the Shenzhou-6 and Shenzhou-10 missions, Liu Boming, 54, who was part of the Shenzhou-7 mission, and Tang Hongbo, 45, who is in his first space mission.

The three astronauts are expected to set a new record for China's manned space mission duration, exceeding the 33 days kept by the Shenzhou-11 crew in 2016.

Biography of Hunan-born Astronaut Tang Hongbo:
Senior Colonel Tang Hongbo, 45, a native of Xiangtan City, Hunan Province, joined the PLA Air Force in September 1995 and was gradually promoted to the post of a group commander at a fighter jet regiment.

Tang became a member of the second group of astronauts at Nie's division in May 2010 and was chosen in May 2016 as an alternate to the two-member crew of the Shenzhou XI mission.

He was picked for the Shenzhou XII crew in December 2019.

Source: Xinhua and China Daily