Astronauts ready for China's longest space mission yet

By Katie Hunt and Serenitie Wang, CNN

Updated 12:12 AM ET, Sun October 16, 2016

 http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/16/asia/china-longest-space-mission/index.html

 (CNN)China is preparing for its longest-ever crewed space mission, with a spacecraft carrying two astronauts expected to lift off Monday, according to state media.

The Shenzhou-11 "heavenly vessel" will blast off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert at 7:30 a.m. (7:30 p.m. Sunday ET), state broadcaster CCTV said Sunday.

On board will be two astronauts -- Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong. They will dock with the Tiangong-2 space lab, which was launched last month.

Jing and Chen will remain in space for a total of 33 days, with 30 of those spent conducting experiments related to medicine, physics and biology in the space lab.