China launched two astronauts into space on Monday. Their launch marks the beginning of China’s longest human space flight yet. A carrier rocket sent a Shenzhou-11 spacecraft with astronauts Chen Dong and Jing Haipeng into space. The rocket was fired from the Jinquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi desert. Chen is 37 years old. This is his first time in space. But Jing has done this before it is his third space flight. He will turn 50 years old while orbiting the Earth. Their trip is off to a good start. That is what Morris Jones told VOA. Jones is an independent space expert from Australia. “So far so good. We saw a live broadcast on Chinese television, and the rocket seemed to perform flawlessly during the flight. We had in-cabin video, we saw the solar panels deploy on the spacecraft, so far it looks like a completely nominal mission.” After two days in Earth’s orbit, the spacecraft was to link up with China’s space laboratory, called the Tiangong-2.