China is set to launch its Shenzhou-20 mission that will carry three astronauts to the Chinese space station Tiangong at 5.17 p.m. on Thursday local time (0917 GMT), state media said on Wednesday.

The main purpose of the mission is to complete the in-orbit rotation with the Shenzhou-19 crew which is scheduled to return to the Dongfeng landing site on April 29, China Manned Space Agency officials said at a press conference broadcast on CCTV.

The Shenzhou-20 spaceflight from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China will carry astronauts Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie, CCTV said.

The spaceflight will be Chen Dong’s third and the first for the other two - a space engineer and a former air force pilot.

They will conduct space science and application experiments, install a space debris protection device as well as extravehicular payload and equipment, and perform recovery tasks.

The mission will also bring with it zebrafish, planarians and streptomyces as research objects to carry out three life science experiments at the space station.

The crew, scheduled to return to Earth in late October, can expect a resupply mission via the unmanned Tianzhou-9 cargo spacecraft.

The country’s fourth batch of astronauts set to participate in Shenzhou spaceflights is currently in training, featuring for the first time astronauts from China’s special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, as well as Pakistan.

The Hong Kong and Macau astronauts are likely to carry out their first mission as early as 2026, state media reported.

China said the selection of the Pakistani astronauts is underway. Both countries signed an agreement for space cooperation in February.

One of the two Pakistani astronauts that will join the Chinese missions is set to focus on payloads and scientific research aboard China’s space station.