China sent Tuesday an unmanned spacecraft to space to dock with its orbiting space station launched in September. It will be the first time the country will try to dock two spacecrafts together in space.

A Long March 2F rocket put the Shenzhou 8 into orbit on Tuesday after a successful liftoff from the Jiuquan spaceport in the Gobi Desert at 5:58 a.m. local time. The spacecraft separated from the rocket nine minutes after launch and opened its solar panels.

Chinese authorities are now preparing the Shenzhou's docking with the Tiangong-1 space lab located 343 kilometres above Earth. It will orbit five times until it comes within 52 kilometres below the Tiangong-1. At such distance, the Shenzhou will be on its own and automatically guides itself to dock with Tiangong-1.

While docked, the two spacecrafts will orbit together for 12 days. The Shenzhou will undock and move 140 metres away from the Tiangong-1 before re-docking. The two will then orbit again for two days before separating again.

In the second separation, the Shenzhou will move five kilometers away from Tiangong-1 and release its return capsule back to Earth by mid-November.

The success of the first docking mission will allow China to send a manned spacecraft to Tiangong-1 next year as part of a larger mission to build a space station by 2020.