China sends youngest astronaut, mice to space station

A crew of three Chinese astronauts, including the country's youngest-ever, docked early Saturday at the Tiangong space station, accompanied by four lab mice. The Shenzhou-21 spaceship docked at 3:22 am (1922 GMT Friday), China's state news agency Xinhua reported.

That was about three-and-ahalf hours after the spaceship departed from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, powered aloft by a Long March-2F rocket. The Tiangong space station -- crewed by teams of three astronauts that are exchanged every six months -- is the crown jewel of China's space programme, into which billions of dollars have been poured in a bid to catch up with the United States and Russia. China has bold plans to send a crewed mission to the Moon by the end of the decade and eventually to build a base on the lunar surface.

Mission commander and veteran space pilot Zhang Lu is accompanied by 32-yearold flight engineer Wu Fei, China's youngest astronaut to undertake a space mission, and payload specialist Zhang Hongzhang, 39. The three astronauts waved goodbye to colleagues and family members at the remote launch base in the Gobi Desert as a band played a patriotic song.