Rocket in place to send 3 crew to Chinese space station

The rocket that will send three crew members to start living on China’s new  space station has been moved onto the launch pad ahead of its planned blastoff next week

BEIJING -- The rocket that will send three crew members to start living on China's new orbiting space station has been moved onto the launch pad ahead of its planned blastoff next week. The astronauts plan to spend three months on the space station doing spacewalks, construction and maintenance work and science experiments. The main section of the Tianhe, or Heavenly Harmony, station was launched into orbit on April 29, and a cargo spacecraft sent up last month carried fuel, food and equipment to the station in preparation for the crewed mission. The Long March-2F Y12 rocket carrying the Shenzhou-12 spaceship was transferred to the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Wednesday, the China Manned Space Engineering Office said in a brief statement.