China's ambitious space odyssey in pictures

With two astronauts on board, the Shenzhou-11 - or the "Divine Vessel" - rocket blasted off into space early in the morning on Monday, October 17. It is the sixth time China has launched astronauts into space. The spacecraft will take two days to reach the Tiangong-2 space lab, which was launched last month.

The two-member crew, made up of astronauts Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong, will remain on board for 30 days. They will conduct research Projects, including those relating to repairing equipment in-orbit, aerospace medicine and atomic space clocks, reported the official Xinhua news agency. Jing, the mission commander, is on his third mission into orbit and will celebrate his 50th birthday in space.

China launched the space lab Tiangong-2, or "Heavenly Palace-2," in September. The lab, which is nine meters long and weighs 13 tons, is in orbit 393 kilometers above Earth. It has two cabins - a hermetically sealed experiment chamber that also serves as the living quarters, and a resources store holding supplies such as solar panels, engines and batteries.

The launch of the Tiangong-2 space lab had an enormous symbolic significance, said Wu Ping, Deputy Director of China's manned space engineering office. That's because the lab was farther, bigger and had a greater life span than its predecessor, she added.

China used the Long March-2F carrier rocket to launch the Shenzhou-11 mission. The 464 ton, 52-meter-tall Long March-2F carrier rocket blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, a military-operated facility on the edge of the Gobi Desert.

China is intensifying efforts to build up its capabilities in space. To that effect, it plans to send its first space cargo ship Tianzhou-1 to the space lab in April 2017. The cargo ship will allow China to replenish the lab with fuel and other supplies.

The Chinese astronauts will conduct experiments on various space-related technologies and perform docking maneuvers. They are necessary for the country to achieve its goal of setting up its own space station. If, as planned, the International Space Station (shown in the picture) ends its mission in 2024, China would be the only country with a permanent post in outer space.

China recently published pictures of probes it wants to send to Mars in future to explore the planet. But so far, there have only been computer simulations showing a six-wheeled rover and a related landing craft. As Xinhua reported, the remote-controlled probe will conduct tests on the Martian surface and look for traces of water during a three-month mission to the planet by the end of the decade.

The first Chinese space laboratory, Tiangong-1, was launched in September 2011. It went out of service in March after docking with three visiting spacecraft and extending its mission for two years.

Three spaceships had docked with Tiangong-1 before the lab went out of service. In 2011, the unmanned Shenzhou-8 mission (shown in photo) was able to dock with Tiangong-1 twice with a gap of 11 days. In 2012, Jing, the commander of the current Shenzhou-11 mission, successfully completed the docking maneuver.