Japan's Kyodo News reports Shenzhou-VI launch

Japan's Kyodo News online released a report on the launch of Shenzhou-VI Wednesday morning. It said:

Two Chinese astronauts blasted off Wednesday morning for a trip into space, the second manned mission for a country with lunar ambitions, China Central TV reported.

The astronauts, 40-year-old Fei Junlong and 41-year-old Nie Haisheng, rocketed into chilly, cloudy skies at 9 a.m. from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China's Gansu Province on the spacecraft Shenzhou-6.

They aim to enter an orbit 200-347 kilometers above Earth's surface, the TV network said.

President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao watched the blastoff from Beijing.

Over a number of days to be determined, the pair -- whose names and brief biographies were announced an hour before takeoff -- will do scientific experiments with human participation, then land in the deserts of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, state media say.

Because China has mastered orbit technology, this mission can hardly fail, said David Wolf, a media consultant and space researcher in Beijing.

''There's every reason to think this will be a successful mission,'' Wolf said. ''The Chinese are good at rocketry.''

Wednesday's launch follows the development of an 18 billion yuan (about $222 million) space program that led up to the October 2003 launch of a single astronaut.

Because two people are traveling this time, they can alternate sleeping, a space analyst said.

Space industry sources have said China wants to reach the moon. China is third in space after the United States and the former Soviet Union and would be second on the moon.

Officials say they also want to learn climate data and other scientific information from the space program. Foreign analysts say China may ultimately commercialize space or join an international expedition to Mars.

Source: Agencies