JIUQUAN, China — China said all systems were ready to launch the next crew to its orbiting space station Wednesday morning, the latest mission aimed at making the country a major space power.

The two men and one woman will replace the astronauts who have been living on the Tiangong space station for six months.

The new mission commander, Cai Xuzhe, traveled to space on the Shenzhou-14 mission in 2022, while the other two, Song Lingdong and Wang Haoze, are new space travelers both born in the 1990s.

Song was an Air Force pilot and Wang, an engineer at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, who will be the crew’s payload specialist. Wang will be the third Chinese woman aboard a crewed mission.

The three men appeared Tuesday at a brief press conference behind protective glass, declaring their intention to carry out their scientific projects on the space station and “to make the country proud.”

The Shenzhou-19 spacecraft carrying the trio is expected to be launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China atop a Long March-2F rocket, the backbone of space missions with crew from China. The launch time is set for 4:27 a.m., according to space agency spokesperson Lin Xiqiang.

China built its own space station after being kicked out of the International Space Stationlargely because of U.S. concerns that the People’s Liberation Army, the military wing of the Chinese Communist Party, had complete control of the program.

In addition to putting a space station into orbit, the space agency has landed an explorer on Mars. It aims put a person on the moon before 2030, which would make China the second country after the United States to do so. He also plans to build a research station on the Moon.

The lunar program is part of a growing rivalry with the United States – still a leader in space exploration – and others, notably Japan and India. America plans to send astronauts to the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years, although NASA pushed back the target date to 2026 earlier this year.

During the next mission, the space station will receive resupply from an unmanned craft, helping them perform spacewalks and replace and install equipment to protect the Tiangong station from space debris, much of which is created by China.

The mission is expected to end at the end of April or beginning of May. Lin, the spokesperson, said China had measures in place in case the astronauts had to return early.

China launched its first crewed mission in 2003, becoming the third country to do so after the former Soviet Union and the United States. The space program is a source of enormous national pride and a hallmark of China’s technological progress over the past two decades.