China sends astronauts to the space station; one will stay for a year

China sent three astronauts to its space station on Sunday, one of whom will stay for a year, a record for the country, enabling the long-term study of human physiology in space as Beijing works towards its ambition of a manned moon landing by 2030.

The Shenzhou-23 spacecraft was launched at 23:08 (12:08 GMT) using the Long March-2F Y23 carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest China, with three Chinese astronauts on board.

Payload specialist Li Jiaying, a former Hong Kong police inspector, is the city's first astronaut to take part in a Chinese space mission. The other crew members are commander Zhu Yangzhu and pilot Zhang Yuanzhi, both from the People's Liberation Army astronaut division.

One of the three is expected to remain at the Tiangong space station for a year, one of the longest space missions ever undertaken, but short of the record of 14 and a half months set by a Russian cosmonaut in 1995.

That astronaut will be decided later depending on the mission's progress, the China Manned Space Agency said on Saturday.

China has sent astronauts to its space station nearly a dozen times, but this launch comes amid an accelerated race to the Moon with the United States, which has warned about what it claims are Beijing's plans to colonize and exploit lunar territory and resources.

Beijing has strongly rejected these allegations.

NASA is trying to achieve a manned landing on the Moon in 2028, two years before China. The U.S. goal is to establish a long-term lunar presence as a springboard for eventual human exploration of Mars.