3 astronauts blast off for Tiangong space station

A Chinese rocket carrying three astronauts to the country’s space station blasted off from its remote launch site on Thursday, the latest milestone in Beijing’s race to become a leading celestial power.

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Beijing has pumped billions of dollars into its space programme in recent years in an effort to achieve what President Xi Jinping describes as the Chinese people's “space dream”.

The world’s second-largest economy has bold plans to send a crewed mission to the moon by the end of the decade and eventually build a base on the lunar surface.

Thursday’s launch of the Shenzhou-20 mission is intended to ferry a team of three astronauts to China's Tiangong space station.