China sent its youngest crew of astronauts to the Tiangong space station on Thursday to improve its knowledge of manned flights, AFP reported.

Tiangong space stationPhoto: Shutterstock

The trio of Shenzhou-17 astronauts lifted off aboard a Long March 2F rocket at 11:14 a.m. local time (03:14 GMT) from the Jiuquan Launch Center in the northwestern Gobi desert, according to surveillance footage.

They are three: Commander Tang Hongbo, who was born in October 1975 and is about 40 years old, his colleague Tang Shenji (33 years old) and Jiang Xinlin (35 years old).

The average age of the crew is 38 years, compared to 42 years in the case of the previous Shenzhou-16 mission.

The spacecraft is scheduled to dock with the central module of the Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) station “about six and a half hours” after launch, Chinese space program spokesman Lin Xiqiang said on Wednesday.

Their stay in Tiangong should last six months.

The experience is invaluable for the Asian giant, which aims to send a Chinese man to the moon by 2030, a key goal of a space program that has been steadily advancing for decades.

Tiangong, whose construction has been completed, has been taking its final T-shaped shape for several months, similar in size to the former Russian-Soviet station Mir, but much smaller than the International Space Station (ISS).

Also known as the CSS (Chinese Space Station), it must remain in Earth’s orbit for at least 10 years.

China was motivated in part to build its own station by the United States’ refusal to allow it to participate in the ISS. US law prohibits virtually any cooperation between US and Chinese space agencies.

However, the Asian giant wants to develop international cooperation around Tiangong, especially for experiments.