ISTANBUL

China is scheduled to launch its Shenzhou-19 manned spaceflight mission at 4.27 a.m. local time Wednesday (2027GMT Tuesday), the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

Veteran taikonaut Cai Xuzhe, who previously flew on the Shenzhou-14 mission in 2022, will lead the mission as commander, said Xinhua.

He will be joined by two astronauts on their inaugural flights, Song Lingdong and Wang Haoze, the latter a female astronaut and former senior engineer with China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the country’s main space contractor.

The indigenously built Long March-2F rocket will carry the astronauts into space.

The Shenzhou-19 crew members will take control of space operations from the Shenzhou-18 taikonauts who are preparing to return home after conducting six months of research in space.

Ye Guangfu and teammates Li Cong and Li Guangsu of the Shenzhou-18 crew are currently aboard China's indigenously built Tiangong space station.

Ye is a fighter pilot and veteran astronaut who took part in the Shenzhou-13 mission in 2021 and has become the first Chinese taikonaut to accumulate a total of 365 days in space.

Beijing launched the three-member crew to its space station on April 25.