China's Shenzhou 21 docks with space station, sets the country's own speed record

The Shenzhou 21 spaceship took off as planned at 11:44 p.m. local time Friday from the Jiuquan launch center in northwestern China. The three astronauts on Shenzhou 21 are planned to enter the Tianhe core module of the space station after the dock.

The crew includes pilot and mission commander Zhang Lu, who also was on the Shenzhou 15 mission to the space station two years ago.

The other two are flying for the first time. Wu Fei, 32, an engineer, is the country’s youngest astronaut to join a spaceflight. Zhang Hongzhang is a payload specialist who was a researcher focusing on new energy and new materials before becoming an astronaut.

Zhang said the team would turn the space station into a “utopia” by doing tai-chi, gardening and appreciating poetry on the Tiangong space station. Like those before them, they will stay at the station for roughly six months.

While in space, the astronauts planned to conduct 27 scientific and applied projects in biotechnology, aerospace medicine, materials science and other areas.

For the first time, China is sending mice to its space station. Four in total, two males and two females, will be monitored to study how weightlessness and confinement affect their behavioral patterns, said Han Pei, an engineer at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"This will help us master key technologies for the breeding and monitoring of small mammals in space and make a preliminary assessment of the mice’s emergency responses and adaptive changes in space environments,” Han said.

The “space mice” were selected from 300 candidates after more than 60 days of intensive training, according to China's official Xinhua News Agency. State media China National Radio reported that the mice are expected to stay five to seven days in the space station and hitch a ride in Shenzhou 20 coming back to Earth.

China's space program is a source of enormous national pride and a hallmark of the nation’s technological advances over the past two decades. China launched its first crewed mission in 2003, becoming only the third nation to do so after the former Soviet Union and the United States.

Zhang Jingbo, a spokesperson for the China Manned Space Agency, said the research and development work is progressing smoothly for the agency’s plans to send an astronaut to the moon.

“Our fixed goal of China landing a person on the moon by 2030 is firm,” Zhang said at a news conference a day ahead of the launch.

The Tiangong, or “Heavenly Palace,” space station has helped make China a major player in space. It was entirely Chinese-built after the country was excluded from the International Space Station over U.S. national security concerns. China’s space program is controlled by the People’s Liberation Army, the military branch of the ruling Communist Party.

In a collaboration with Pakistan, China is in the process of choosing two Pakistani astronauts to come to China for training. The space agency's plan is to send one of them on a short-term mission as a payload expert, in what would be the first visit to the space station by a foreign astronaut.

Associated Press writer Fu Ting reported from Washington.