China is preparing to send three astronauts to its Tiangong space station on a six-month mission to oversee the final stages of its construction. The Shenzhou 14 is scheduled to blast off from the Gobi Desert at around 10.44am local time on Sunday, and the crew will include female astronaut Liu Yang, according to a source familiar with China’s manned space programme. Liu was the first Chinese woman to go into space – on the Shenzhou 9 mission in 2012. She spent 13 days at the nation’s first space laboratory, Tiangong 1, where she was in charge of medical experiments. The 43-year-old is also a veteran pilot and plays the clarinet, according to Chinese media reports. This will be her second mission into low-Earth orbit. China has yet to announce the crew for the Shenzhou 14, but there has been speculation it could include Chen Dong, who is also 43 and spent 33 days at the country’s second space lab, Tiangong 2, during the Shenzhou 11 mission in 2016. The Shenzhou 14 spacecraft and Long March 2F carrier rocket have been moved to the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in Inner Mongolia and will go through checks and testing this week, according to the China Manned Space Agency website. It will be a crucial mission for the space station as the crew will oversee the installation of two more modules – taking it from a single module to a T-shaped structure. Chinese space centre finds jamming device weeks before launch The 20-metric-tonne laboratory modules – Wentian and Mengtian – will be sent to dock with the Tianhe core module in July and October, respectively, an official with the China Manned Space Engineering Office told reporters in April. When the Wentian lab arrives, the astronauts will work with ground control to move the module from Tianhe’s front docking port to its side using a large robotic arm. They will also use Wentian’s airlock cabin for activities including spacewalks. The crew is also expected to conduct scientific experiments and engage in outreach activities, as previous astronauts at the station have done. Towards the end of the year, they will greet the next crew arriving on the Shenzhou 15 and are expected to stay at the station with them for five to 10 days before they return to Earth. That will mark the first crew rotation in Chinese space flight history. Ahead of the latest mission, supplies for the six-month stay in orbit were delivered to the space station by the Tianzhou 4 cargo spacecraft earlier this month. The Shenzhou 14 is expected to dock with the Tianhe core module less than seven hours after lift-off. Meanwhile, the Wentian laboratory and its launcher – a Long March 5B rocket – have arrived at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in the southern island province of Hainan. They will go through final assembly and tests before the launch in late July.