China today successfully launched its longest manned space mission, sending two astronauts into orbit to spend a month aboard a space laboratory, a milestone event in the Communist giant’s ambitious plan to set up a permanent manned space station by 2022. The two astronauts, Jing Haipeng, 50, and Chen Dong, 37, took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northern China on Shenzhou-11 (heavenly vessel) spacecraft at 7:30 am local time (5 am IST). They will dock with the experimental Tiangong 2 space lab and spend 30 days there, the longest stay in space by Chinese astronauts, Wu Ping, Deputy Director of China’s manned space engineering office said.