China sends its first female astronaut into space

China on Saturday underscored its super power status when it launched its most ambitious space mission to date, sending its first female astronaut, Liu Yang, to the final frontier and bidding to achieve the country’s first manual space docking. Shenzhou-9 — China’s fourth manned space mission — launched at 6:37 pm (1037 GMT) from the remote Gobi desert in the nation’s northwest, state television pictures showed. The crew were headed by Jing Haipeng, a veteran astronaut who has gone to space twice already. Liu Wang, who has been in the space programme for 14 years, is in charge of manual docking manoeuvres. Liu Yang, 33, who has created a stir in the media and online for becoming China’s first woman to travel to space, will conduct aerospace medical experiments and other space tests. At a pre-departure ceremony broadcast on state TV Wu Bangguo, chairman of the National People’s Congress, told them: “The country and the people are looking forward to your successful return.” The mission will last 10 days, during which the crew will perform experiments and the manual space docking — a highly technical procedure that brings two vessels together in high speed orbit.