China's 17th manned space mission to depart imminently

China's next crewed space mission, the Shenzhou XXIII, is scheduled to be launched in the coming days to transport three astronauts to the Tiangong space station, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

The Shenzhou XXIII spacecraft and its carrier — a Long March 2F rocket — were moved to the service tower at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China's Gobi Desert on Saturday morning, the agency said in a brief news release, adding that launch equipment at the spaceport "are in good condition".

The release noted that the Shenzhou XXIII crew vessel and the rocket will undergo final functional checks in the next few days, adding that the launch will take place in due course in the near future.

The Shenzhou XXIII crew will carry out China's 17th manned spaceflight and will become the 11th group of inhabitants of the Tiangong, which is currently the only operating space station independently run by a single nation.

The Tiangong is now manned by the Shenzhou XXI astronauts — mission commander Senior Colonel Zhang Lu, spaceflight engineer Major Wu Fei, and payload specialist Zhang Hongzhang — who arrived on Nov 1 and are scheduled to return around the end of this month.

The Shenzhou XXII spaceship was used in an emergency response task in late November in the wake of a window damage incident on the Shenzhou XX vessel, becoming an unmanned mission.