From The Associated Press
A Chinese spacecraft blasted off to begin the country's fifth and longest manned space mission, taking three astronauts to an orbiting space lab from where they will give science lessons to youngsters.
A Long March 2F rocket carrying the Shenzhou 10 astronaut capsule lifted off as scheduled at 5:38 p.m. (0938 GMT) Tuesday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert.
The spacecraft will transport the crew to the Tiangong 1, an experimental prototype for a much larger Chinese space station to be launched in 2020. They'll be docked together for 12 days.
The craft carried two men, mission commander Nie Haisheng and Zhang Xiaoguang, and China's second female astronaut, Wang Yaping.
