A Chinese Long March 2F rocket successfully launched the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft today, June 16th 2012 at 10:37 UTC. On board two male and the first Chinese female astronauts are on board as they travel in orbit.<br /><br />In the next few days they will manually dock to the Chinese Spacelab Tiangong-1 which was launched late last year. Their mission will last 2 weeks as they become the first Chinese manned vehicle to dock in orbit.
