China plans to launch three astronauts into low-Earth orbit on Friday night to exchange crews onboard its Tiangong space station, according to the China Manned Space Agency. Zhang Jingbo, a spokesman for the agency, said at a news conference on Thursday morning at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region in Northwest China, that a Long March 2F carrier rocket is scheduled for lift off from the Jiuquan spaceport at 11:44 pm on Friday. The rocket will carry the Shenzhou XXI mission crew, headed by Senior Colonel Zhang Lu, toward the Tiangong, which has been manned by their Shenzhou XX peers for more than six months. The rocket's propellant fueling will begin at its service tower later on Thursday, and other pre-launch preparations are already underway, according to the spokesman, who is also a senior engineer at the space agency. "After the Shenzhou XXI spacecraft enters its preset orbital position, it will activate the rapid auto...