Chinese President Xi Jinping met the three astronauts on the Shenzhou-10 space mission scheduled to be launched later today, state media said.
China Central Television showed Xi speaking to space-suited Nie Haisheng, Zhang Xiaoguang and Wang Yaping through a glass screen on Tuesday afternoon, a few hours before the scheduled launch at 0938 GMT on a Long March-2F carrier rocket.
Xi planned to watch the launch at the Jiuquan space centre in the remote north-western province of Gansu, the state broadcaster said.
“You made Chinese people feel proud of ourselves,” it showed Xi telling the astronauts.
“You have trained and prepared yourselves carefully and thoroughly, so I am confident in you completing the mission successfully,” he said.
“I wish you success and look forward to your triumphant return,” said Xi, who also heads China’s ruling Communist Party and its Central Military Commission.
The Shenzhou-10 mission is part of China’s quest to assemble a permanent space station around 2020.
The three astronauts plan to dock the spacecraft and form a rudimentary space laboratory with Tiangong-1, which has orbited Earth since 2011.
A highlight of their 15-day mission will be a live broadcast of a physics lesson via a video link, Wu Ping, a spokeswoman for the China Manned Space Engineering Programme, told reporters Monday.
Wang Yaping, 33, China’s second woman in space, will deliver the lecture on gravity in space, Wu said.
“Through this event, we hope to bring the space programme closer to the younger generation, improve their understanding and attract their interest in our work,” she said.
Shenzhou-10 is China’s fifth manned space mission. It follows the first piloted rendezvous and docking manoeuvres during the Shenzhou-9 mission in June 2012.
In 2003, China became the third nation to launch an astronaut into space, after Russia and the United States.