China's Shenzhou-9 launched successfully

China's Shenzhou-9 has blasted off successfully from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi desert aboard a Long March rocket. Here are a couple of videos of the launch:

The next event of note is when the taikonauts (including China's first female taikonaut) attempt to manually dock into the Tiangong-1 space lab, a precursor to a full fledged space station. NYT, The Telegraph and others have articles on the launch and the associated mission.