China launches Shenzhou-20 manned spaceship

China launched the Shenzhou-20 crewed spaceship on Thursday, sending three astronauts to its orbiting space station for a six-month mission.

The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, blasted off at 17:17 (Beijing Time) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, said the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

About 10 minutes after the launch, the Shenzhou-20 spaceship separated from the rocket and entered its designated orbit. The crew members, consisting of mission commander Chen Dong and crew members Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie, are in good condition while the launch has been declared a complete success, the CMSA announced.

Around 6.5 hours after the launch, the spaceship will perform a fast, automated rendezvous and docking with the radial port of the space station core module Tianhe, forming a combination of three modules and three spacecraft.

Shenzhou-20 is the 35th flight mission of China's manned space program, and the fifth crewed mission during the application and development stage of China's space station.

The crew is scheduled to return to the Dongfeng landing site in north China in late October this year.

The central parity rate of the Chinese currency renminbi, or the yuan, weakened 3 pips to 6.8657 against the U.S. dollar Monday, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.

In China's spot foreign exchange market, the yuan is allowed to rise or fall by 2 percent from the central parity rate each trading day.

The central parity rate of the yuan against the U.S. dollar is based on a weighted average of prices offered by market makers before the opening of the interbank market each business day.