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)

“A small British company with a dream of building a re-usable space plane has won an important endorsement from the European Space Agency (ESA) after completing key tests on its novel engine technology. Reaction Engines Ltd believes its Sabre engine, which would operate like a jet engine in the atmosphere and a rocket in space, could displace rockets for space access and transform air travel by bringing any destination on Earth to no more than four hours away”. – Chris Wickham via Reuters. Photo: Artist's impression of Skylon. (Photo by Reaction Engines Ltd)

Children, some in tears, are escorted down a road in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, August 17, 2017. Police in Barcelona say a white van has mounted a sidewalk, struck several people in the city's Las Ramblas district. (Photo by Manu Fernandez/AP Photo)

Planes land in fog at Heathrow Airport, west London, as heavy fog covers a many parts of the south east, on April 1, 2014. (Photo by Steve Parsons/PA Wire)

Face Off is an American reality television game show on the Syfy cable network in which a group of prosthetic makeup artists compete against each other to create prostheses such as those found in science fiction and horror films.

Thousands of species of amphibians are endangered and hundreds have already disappeared, but in recent years, a team of scientists and conservationists have re-discovered some of these “lost” species and uncovered previously unknown varieties. Here: Miniature glass frog. (Photo by Robin Moore)

A child dressed as a clown takes part in the celebration of the Virgen de los Desamparados, or Our Lady of the Abandoned, at Diria town, Nicaragua May 14, 2016. (Photo by Oswaldo Rivas/Reuters)

A person poses on the track during a fashion competition at the Durban July horse racing event in Durban, South Africa, July 2, 2016. (Photo by Rogan Ward/Reuters)