China successfully launches Shenzhou-20 crewed spaceship

China on Thursday successfully launched the Shenzhou-20 spaceship, sending another three astronauts on their way to the orbiting Tiangong space station where they will begin 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. The launch was later declared a complete success by the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

The Shenzhou-20 crew consists of experienced mission commander Chen Dong, and astronauts Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie, who are both making debut their spaceflights. A send-off ceremony was held earlier on Thursday for the three astronauts before they left for the launch site.

About 10 minutes after the launch, the Shenzhou-20 spaceship separated from the rocket and entered its designated orbit, said the CMSA.

The next key stage will come around 6.5 hours after the launch, when 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.

China successfully launches Shenzhou-20 crewed spaceship

China successfully launches Shenzhou-20 crewed spaceship

Chinese tech giant ByteDance, parent company of the popular short-video app TikTok, has signed binding agreements to divest the app's most assets in the United States and form a joint venture with a group of mostly American investors, in a crucial step toward avoiding a U.S. government ban, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said in a memo sent to the company staff on Thursday.

Under the agreements, ByteDance will retain 19.9 percent of the business, while U.S. cloud computing giant Oracle, private equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX will each hold 15 percent. The remaining 30.1 percent will be held by affiliates of ByteDance's existing investors.

The move follows U.S. President Donald Trump's order in September this year to delay the enforcement of a law that would ban TikTok unless it was sold.

Although the transaction will not be complete until Jan 22, 2026, the move enables TikTok, used by more than 170 million Americans, to continue operating in the United States.

In April 2024, during former President Joe Biden's administration, the U.S. Congress passed a law to ban TikTok over what it called national security concerns, unless the app was sold.

The law was set to go into effect on Jan 20 this year, but was pushed back multiple times by Trump, while his administration worked toward a deal to transfer ownership.

TikTok parent ByteDance signs deal to sell US operations in joint venture move