Three Chinese astronauts including the country's only woman spaceflight engineer blasted off on a "dream" mission to the Tiangong space station in the early hours of Wednesday

The new Tiangong team will carry out experiments with an eye to the space programme's ambitious goal of placing astronauts on the Moon by 2030 and eventually constructing a lunar base.

The spacecraft Shenzhou-19 and its three crew lifted off atop a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China at 4.27am, according to state media.

The space agency deemed the launch a "complete success", Xinhua said.

"During the Shenzhou-19 flight ... 86 space sci-tech experiments will be carried out in the fields of space life sciences, microgravity physics, materials, medicine, new technologies," Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), said in a press conference on Tuesday.

One of these experiments is expected to involve exposing bricks made from simulated lunar soil to conditions in space.

Should the tests prove successful, the bricks could be a key material used in the construction of a permanent lunar research station, which China hopes to complete by 2035, as it would in theory be more convenient than transporting building materials from Earth.

The bricks will be sent in a separate uncrewed cargo spaceflight to the Shenzhou-19 crew next month.

Among the crew on the Shenzhou-19 is Wang Haoze, 34, who is China's only female spaceflight engineer, according to the CMSA. She is the third Chinese woman to take part in a crewed mission.

"Like everyone else, I dream of going to the space station to have a look," Wang told a media gathering on Tuesday alongside her fellow crew members.

"I want to meticulously complete each task and protect our home in space," she said. "I also want to travel in deep space and wave at the stars."

Headed by Cai Xuzhe, the team will return to Earth in late April or early May next year.

Cai, a 48-year-old former air force pilot, brings experience from a previous stint aboard Tiangong as part of the Shenzhou-14 mission in 2022.

"Having been selected for the new crew, taking on a new role, facing new tasks and new challenges, I feel the honour of my mission with a great responsibility," said Cai.

The crew currently aboard the Tiangong space station is scheduled to return to Earth on November 4 after completing handover procedures with the incoming astronauts, CMSA’s Lin said.

The Shenzhou crewed spaceflights have been a regular fixture of China's space program for the past two decades and have increased in frequency in recent years as China built and began operating its "Tiangong" space station, officially completed in November 2022.

Crewed by teams of three astronauts that are rotated every six months, Tiangong is the programme's crown jewel. Beijing says it is on track to send a crewed mission to the Moon by 2030, where it intends to construct a base on the lunar surface. (Agencies)