BEIJING China sent three astronauts to its permanently inhabited space station on April 25 for a six-month stay, in a regular rotation of Chinese astronauts onboard the "Tiangong" orbiting high above the Earth's atmosphere. The spacecraft Shenzhou-18, or "Divine Vessel", and its three passengers lifted off atop a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in north-west.