Dust covered seats are pictured inside the lounge of the Jaisalmer Airport in desert state of Rajasthan, India, August 13, 2015. Two-and-a-half years after the completion of a new $17 million terminal building, the airport in Jaisalmer, a small and remote desert city in India's western Rajasthan state, stands empty. (Photo by Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters)

China has sent its first woman into space on a mission to dock with an orbiting station, the latest step in an ambitious programme to go to the moon and on to Mars.

Photo: China's first female astronaut Liu Yang, waves during a sending off ceremony before she departs for the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft rocket launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, China, Saturday, June 16, 2012. China will send its first woman and two other astronauts into space Saturday to work on a temporary space station for about a week, in a key step toward becoming only the third nation to set up a permanent base in orbit. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

The International Space Station (ISS) moves along its orbit above at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Thursday, July 18, 2019, with a statue of Soviet Union founder Vladimir Lenin in the foreground. Circular star tracks around the Polar Star and tracks of the ISS is the result of the camera multiple exposure with a total duration of two hours. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

A pigeon, known as Siyah Kinifirli, with an approximate market value of 1000 Turkish Lira ($263), bred by 23-year-old Ismail Ozbek, is pictured in Sanliurfa, Turkey, December 23, 2016. As night-time approaches in Sanliurfa, southeastern Turkey, most of the alleyways of the city's old bazaar are emptying out of buyers and vendors, except for one. (Photo by Umit Bektas/Reuters)

A member of the Air Force's Wings of Blue Parachute Demonstration Team salutes as he jumps out of an aircraft, during the opening ceremony of Aviation Nation 2017 Nellis Air and Space Expo at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., November 10, 2017. (Photo by Senior Airman Kevin Tanenbaum/Reuters/U.S. Air Force)

The homemade Airbus A320 jet plane made by Chinese farmer Zhu Yue is being built at an open space in Kaiyuan city, northeast China's Liaoning province on February 4, 2018. (Photo by Imaginechina/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

An Orthodox priest conducts a blessing in front of the Soyuz TMA-20M for the next International Space Station (ISS) crew, comprised of Jeff Williams of the U.S. and Oleg Skriprochka and Alexey Ovchinin of Russia, at the launchpad at the Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, March 17, 2016, ahead of its launch scheduled on March 19. (Photo by Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)

A busy rush hour sees thousands of commuters climbing on board a train – as well as holding onto its sides and sitting on the roof before it speeds off. Men, women and children climb and are pulled up onto the roof of the train, which is around 12ft (3.6m) high, as they try to find themselves a space. With no seats available inside, many commuters decide to take the risk and choose a rooftop view for their journey out of Dhaka city, in Bangladesh. (Photo by Yousuf Tushar/Solent News & Photo Agency)