Two Bulgarian tourists pose in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris on their last day in the capital on March 24, 2014. (Photo by Franck Fife/AFP Photo)

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)

Hurricanes player Xavier Numia and Black Ferns player Marcelle Parkes train in isolation at Polo Ground Park due to the coronavirus lockdown on May 06, 2020 in Wellington, New Zealand. New Zealand has been in lockdown since Thursday 26 March following tough restrictions imposed by the government to stop the spread of COVID-19 across the country. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

A police officer wearing a protective mask walks past the portrait of late communist leader Mao Zedong (not pictured) at Tiananmen Gate in Beijing on January 23, 2020. Large-scale Lunar New Year events in Beijing have been cancelled as part of national efforts to control the spread of a new SARS-like virus, city authorities announced on January 23. (Photo by Nicolas Asfouri/AFP Photo)

A woman is supported by two men while crossing a river, north of Idomeni, Greece, as migrants attempt to reach Macedonia on a route that would bypass the border fence, Monday, March 14, 2016. Hundreds of migrants and refugees walked out of an overcrowded camp on the Greek-Macedonian border Monday, determined to use a dangerous crossing to head north. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

In this June 1, 2016 photo, Maria Arias stands near her kitchen as she puts on earrings while getting ready for school in Caracas, Venezuela. So many students have fainted from hunger at Maria's school that administrators told parents to keep their children home until they could find more food. (Photo by Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo)

People rush an injured woman to a local hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan, Monday, October 26, 2015. A powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake in northern Afghanistan rocked cities across South Asia. Strong tremors were felt in Kabul, New Delhi and Islamabad on Monday. In the Pakistani capital, walls swayed back and forth and people poured out of office buildings in a panic, reciting verses from the Quran. (Photo by Mohammad Sajjad/AP Photo)

Jing Li (L) and her husband Ke Xu wear Tibetan traditional costumes as they pose for their wedding photos in front of Tibetan prayer flags at the Nianqing Tanggula mountain pass in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China November 18, 2015. Jing, 22, and her husband Ke Xu, 23, both from Shiyan in northwestern Hubei province live in Tibet for three year. The couple married last month. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)