The carrier rocket was launched from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on Hainan Island.
In late February, a Long March 5B carrier rocket was transported to a launch site in southern China ahead of a mission set to lift the Tianhe core module of the Chinese space station into orbit.
The launch of the Long March 5B rocket, topped with the Tianhe module, is the first in a series of 12 missions to assemble China’s first space outpost — Tiangong, or Heavenly Palace — in lower Earth orbit by 2022.
