A shoebill is displayed at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo August 28, 2012. (Photo by Itsuo Inouye/Associated Press)

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)

Umbrellas are placed over the statute of the Beatles, during a photocall, on Liverpool's waterfront, in Liverpool, England, Wednesday, March 22, 2017. The city of Liverpool is getting set to celebrate the half-centenary of “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band”, one of the most influential albums by local heroes The Beatles. (Photo by Peter Byrne/PA Wire via AP Photo)

Cast member Charlize Theron attends the “Atomic Blonde” World Premiere at Stage Theater on July 17, 2017 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Alamy Stock Photo)

An employee feeds a one-week-old coati cub with a bottle of milk at the Royev Ruchey zoo in the suburbs of Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, October 10, 2014. The mother of three cubs refused to nurse them, according to zoo employees. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

A handout photo made available by the World Press Photo (WPP) organization on 13 February 2017 shows a picture by Rossiya Segodnya photographer Valery Melnikov that won the Long-Term Projects – First Prize award of the 60th annual World Press Photo Contest, it was announced by the WPP Foundation in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on 13 February 2017. Caption: Civilians escape from a fire at a house destroyed by an air attack in the Luhanskaya village. (Photo by Valery Melnikov/EPA/Rossiya Segodnya/World Press Photo)

A Palestinian man rides a donkey-drawn cart transporting an old car to a scrap yard, in Gaza City on March 15, 2020. (Photo by Mohammed Salem/Reuters)