BEIJING — A pair of Chinese astronauts entered the country’s orbiting space station for a month-long stay early Wednesday, as China’s sixth and longest crewed mission gets underway in earnest. RelatedThe space station launched Sept. 15 is orbiting about 393 kilometres above the earth. A fully functioning space station is on course to begin full operations six years from now and slated to run for at least a decade. China’s manned space program has also conducted a spacewalk, while the lunar program recently decommissioned its Yutu rover and is considering sending a crew to the moon. China was excluded from the International Space Station mainly due to U.S. legislation barring such co-operation and concerns over the Chinese space program’s strongly military character.

Source: National Post October 19, 2016 15:22 UTC