- China is preparing to send three astronauts to live on its space station for six months – a new milestone for a program that has advanced rapidly in recent years.
- It will be China’s longest-ever crewed space mission and set a record for the most time spent in space by Chinese astronauts.
- The Shenzhou-13 spaceship is expected to be launched into space on a Long March-2F rocket early from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert in northwestern China.