The Shenzhou-20 mission will take off from the Jiuquan launch center in the northwest of the country, carrying three astronauts. The team's destination is the Tiangong space station, where they will remain for about six months.
The mission aims to contribute to China's ambitious goal of putting astronauts on the moon by 2030, followed by the construction of a lunar base.
The Shenzhou spacecraft and the Long March-2F launcher have already been transferred to the launch site and will be launched "in due course in the near future," the Chinese Space Agency said last week.
Photos published by China's official Xinhua news agency show the long white rocket sitting on a blue pedestal decorated with Chinese flags, surrounded by red and gold banners saluting the country's space program.
"Currently, the facilities and equipment at the launch site are in good condition. Functional inspections and joint tests will be carried out as scheduled," the China Manned Spaceflight Agency (CMSA) said.
Authorities have not yet revealed the identities of the astronauts on the Shenzhou-20 mission, nor the exact tasks they will perform.
The crew is "in good condition, precise in their maneuvers and well-coordinated," said Zhou Wenxing, a member of the country's astronaut training center, as quoted by state television CCTV.
China's previous manned mission, Shenzhou-19, launched last October and is scheduled to conclude on April 29.
It is led by Cai Xuzhe, a 48-year-old former fighter pilot who flew aboard the Tiangong space station during the Shenzhou-14 mission in 2022.
The crew also includes Wang Haoze, 35, the country’s only female spaceflight engineer and the third Chinese woman to participate in a manned space mission.
Song Lingdong, a 34-year-old man, completes the trio.
The Shenzhou-19 team will have conducted experiments to observe how extreme radiation, gravity, temperature and other conditions affect the “bricks” made of materials that mimic lunar soil, according to press releases issued at the launch.
Under the leadership of Chinese President Xi Jinping, China has accelerated the realization of its “space dream.”
Its program is the third in the world to put humans in orbit. China has also landed probes on Mars and the Moon.
Beijing says it is on track to send a manned mission to the Moon by 2030.
In recent decades, Beijing has invested billions of dollars in building a cutting-edge space program that rivals those of the United States and Europe.
In 2019, it successfully landed the Chang'e-4 probe on the far side of the Moon -- a world first -- and a small rover on Mars in 2021.
The Tiangong station, whose Tianhe core module was launched in 2021, is expected to be in use for about ten years.
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