All systems in Place

A four-hour rehearsal for the country's first manned space-docking mission ended successfully on Tuesday, meaning the launch of Shenzhou IX, scheduled for "sometime around mid-June", can go ahead as planned.

The rehearsal, held at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest China's Gansu province, involved all systems of the mission, such as spacecraft, carrier rocket and launch site.

The astronauts selected for the mission also participated in the rehearsal and "worked in harmony", a statement from the space program said.