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 Challenge!” Young boy relishes in a game of tug of war before school. Photo location: Lake Titicaca, Peru. (Photo and caption by Paul Heyman/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Cuban-American artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada's six-acre sand and soil “facescape” stretches across the JFK Hockey Field on the north side of the Reflecting Pool along the National Mall October 1, 2014 in Washington, DC. Titled “Out of Many, One” and composed of 2,500 tons of sand, 800 tons of top soil and eight miles of string, the piece is the artist's interpreative blending of 30 different men's faces. Rodriguez-Gereda used high-precision global positioning satellites to place 10,000 wood pegs as waypoints for the giant face. The piece will be open to the public beginning October 4 and will eventually be tilled back into the earth. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A white tiger cub growls at the Buenos Aires Zoo in Argentina, Thursday, March 21, 2013. The cub's mother, Cleo, a captive Bengal white tiger, gave birth to two females and two males on January 14. (Photo by Natacha Pisarenko/AP Photo)

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Wadha al-Sayyed, wife of captive Lebanese soldier Khaled Moqbel, protests for his release and government action, near burning tyres blocking a road in Beirut, December 15, 2014. More than two dozen members of the Lebanese security forces are being held by Sunni Islamists. (Photo by Hasan Shaaban/Reuters)

A group of men play Myanmar's traditional sport of chinlone in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Friday, November 18, 2016. (Photo by Aung Shine Oo/AP Photo)

A wild leopard runs on the stairs as it tries to escape from a compound of a house in Kathmandu, Nepal June 1, 2016. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

A girl and boy carry a basket of fish in Kyaukpyu township, Rakhine state, Myanmar October 6, 2015. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)