JIUQUAN, May 24 (Xinhua) - China launched the Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceship on Sunday, which will send three astronauts to its orbiting Tiangong space station.

The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.

(Photo: People's Daily)

The Shenzhou-23 crew consists of mission commander Zhu Yangzhu, along with astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Li Jiaying, or Lai Ka-ying in Cantonese. The three astronauts are, respectively, a flight engineer, a spacecraft pilot, and a payload specialist.

Zhu once participated in the Shenzhou-16 space mission. Zhang and Li come from the third and fourth batches of astronauts, respectively, and this is their first spaceflight mission. Before being selected, Zhang was an air force pilot, and Li worked in the Hong Kong Police Force.

Li has made history as the first astronaut from China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to travel to space, and she is also the country's fourth female astronaut to reach space, following in the footsteps of Liu Yang, Wang Yaping and Wang Haoze.