BEIJING, Oct 16: Officials have unveiled plans for Monday's launch of China's latest space mission in which two astronauts will be blasted into space and will dock with an orbiting space lab.

Wu Ping, deputy director of China's manned space engineering office, says the Shenzhou 11 spacecraft will be launched at 7:30 a.m. on Monday.

The mission will take off aboard a Long March-2F carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert in northern China.

Wu says the spacecraft will dock with the Tiangong 2 space station within two days and the astronauts will stay there for 30 days to conduct experiments.

Wu identified the astronauts flying the mission as 49-year-old Jing Haipeng and 37-year-old Chen Dong.

 
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