China has launched three astronauts on a three-month mission to its new space station in low-Earth orbit. China built its own station after the U.S. banned Chinese astronauts — known as taikonauts — from the International Space Station. It’s China’s first crewed mission since 2016 and follows two other recent successes: a sample-return mission from the moon and the deployment of a rover on Mars. China is just the second nation, after the U.S., to operate a rover on the Red Planet.