China will launch its second orbiting space laboratory, Tiangong-2, in mid-September this year, the country's manned space engineering office announced on Saturday.

Wu Ping, deputy director of the manned space engineering office, revealed the information to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

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The announcement came on the day China successfully launched its new generation of carrier rocket - the Long March-7 - from Wenchang Space Launch Center, Hainan province.

"The successful launch of the Long March-7 is significant. It's a starting point of our mission as a whole. It will be followed by the launch of the Shenzhou-11, Tiangong-2 and Tianzhou spacecraft," Li Jian of Beijing Aerospace Control Center said after the launch.

Beijing launched the Tiangong-1 in 2011. The space laboratory, which fulfilled its mission and stopped functioning in March this year, will be replaced by Tiangong-2.

The second orbiting space lab will later be docked with country's planned first cargo ship, Tianzhou-1, which is scheduled to launch in 2017. The Shenzhou-XI manned spacecraft will carry two astronauts to dock the Tiangong-2. The astronauts, who are currently training, will stay in Tiangong-2 for 30 days.

"Unlike Tiangong I, the Tiangong II will be a genuine space lab. It is set to perform a lot of space scientific and application experiments and make preparations for our future space station," Liao Jianlin of China Academy of Space Technology said two months ago.

"Tiangong II has two cabins with different functions. The experiment cabin will be hermetically sealed, with astronauts living in it and conducting their missions, while the resource cabin will contain solar panels, storage batteries, propellant and engines."

Tagschina, space program, rocket launch, Space Lab