Shenzhou XXIII takes off with first HK astronaut

China launched the Shenzhou XXIII manned mission on Sunday night to send three crew members, including the country's first female civilian astronaut who is also the first orbital traveler from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, to the Tiangong space station.

The Shenzhou XXIII astronauts — mission commander and spaceflight engineer Colonel Zhu Yangzhu, spacecraft pilot Colonel Zhang Zhiyuan, and science payload specialist Lai Ka-ying — set out on their expedition at 11:08 pm as their spaceship's carrier, a 20-story-tall Long March 2F rocket, roared to life and soared into the skies from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.