Shenzhou-8 blasted off on board a Long March-2F carrier rocket from the remote Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in north-western China&#39;s Gansu province. 
	It was scheduled to dock with the Tiangong-1 space capsule within two days of the launch and stay linked for about 12 days, Wu Ping, a spokeswoman for the China Manned Space Engineering Office, said on Monday. 
	Shenzhou-8 would then perform a second rendezvous and docking manoeuvre before it detached again to allow the re-entry module to return to Earth on November 17, Wu said. 
	The two-year Tiangong-1 mission was launched on September 29 to provide the target vessel for Shenzhou-8. 
	Astronauts are scheduled to visit Tiangong-1 twice next year on the Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10 spacecraft, which are designed to link with Tiangong-1 to form a mini-space station. 
	In 2003, China became the third nation to launch an astronaut into space, after Russia and the United States.//DPA 
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China launches Shenzhou-8 on docking mission

Beijing - China launched the unpiloted Shenzhou-8 spacecraft early Tuesday, marking the start of another key mission in the nation's quest to assemble a permanent space station within a decade.