This photo provided by NASA astronaut Christina Koch shows the launch of a Russian Soyuz rocket, as seen from the International Space Station on Wednesday, September 25, 2019. (Photo by Christina Koch/NASA via AP Photo)

A palm squirrel and ring-rosed parakeet compete for space on a stump in a residential area of Chandigarh, India in the last decade of August 2024. (Photo by Anuj Jain/Solent News)

SpaceX launch of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying Starlink satellites on Mission 12-2 on December 23, 2024. The rocket launched from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39A in Florida. (Photo by USA Today)

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 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)

A three minute time exposure shows the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Launch Complex 40, Thursday, January 7, 2021 in Port Canaveral, Fla. The rocket is carrying the Turksat 5A satellite for Turkey. (Photo by Malcolm Denenark/Florida Today via AP Photo)

People visit the art installation “Machine Memories: Space” by Turkish artist Refik Anadol in the exhibition at Pilevneli Art Gallery in I​stanbul, Turkey, 22 March 2021. The exhibition runs until 25 April. (Photo by Sedat Suna/EPA/EFE)