A new crew took off for China's space station on Friday, including the country's youngest ever astronaut and four lab mice.

The Long March-2F rocket carrying the Shenzhou-21 mission crew lifted off at 11:44 pm (1544 GMT) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, AFP journalists saw.

The Tiangong space station -- crewed by teams of three astronauts that are exchanged every six months -- is the crown jewel of China's space programme, into which billions of dollars have been poured in a bid to catch up with the United States and Russia.

China has bold plans to send a crewed mission to the Moon by the end of the decade and eventually to build a base on the lunar surface.

Mission commander and veteran space pilot Zhang Lu is accompanied by 32-year-old flight engineer Wu F

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