The International Space Station (ISS) moves along its orbit above at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Thursday, July 18, 2019, with a statue of Soviet Union founder Vladimir Lenin in the foreground. Circular star tracks around the Polar Star and tracks of the ISS is the result of the camera multiple exposure with a total duration of two hours. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, Expedition 40 flight engineer, attired in a Russian Orlan spacesuit, participates in a session of extravehicular activity (EVA) in support of science and maintenance on the International Space Station on August 18, 2014. During the five-hour, 11-minute spacewalk, Skvortsov and cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev (out of frame) deployed a small science satellite, retrieved and installed experiment packages and inspected components on the exterior of the orbital laboratory. (Photo by NASA)

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)

“Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American space transport company founded by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk. It has developed the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets, both of which are built with a goal of being reusable launch vehicles. SpaceX is also developing the Dragon spacecraft to be carried to orbit by Falcon 9 launch vehicles. SpaceX designs, tests and fabricates the majority of their components in-house, including the Merlin, Kestrel, and Draco rocket engines. In December 2010, SpaceX became the first private company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft (a Dragon)”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Elon Musk, CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corp, speaks during a news conference at the National Press Club April 5, 2011 in Washington, DC. Elon Musk, CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) and Tesla Motors, held the news conference to announce SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket which could complete missions to the International Space Station and Moon and should be ready for use by the end of 2012. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)

A Perseid meteor streaks across the sky above Inspiration Point early on August 12, 2016 in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah. The annual display, known as the Perseid shower because the meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Perseus in the northeastern sky, is a result of Earth's orbit passing through debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

This undated image provided by World View shows World View capsule and balloon spacecraft that will rise to 100,000 feet above Earth for passengers to see the curvature of the planet and the blackness of space. Space tourism companies are employing designs including winged vehicles, vertical rockets with capsules and high-altitude balloons. While developers envision ultimately taking people to orbiting habitats, the moon or beyond, the immediate future involves short flights into or near the lowest reaches of space without going into orbit. (Photo by World View via AP Photo)

A couple is walking hand-held up Kronsberg, just outside Hanover, Germany on April 7, 2020, when the moon rises on the horizon as the so-called supermoon. The moon reaches its perigee, i.e. the point closest to the Earth's orbit, on the night of 7-8 April as a full moon and therefore appears particularly large to the human observer. (Photo by Julian Stratenschulte/dpa via ZUMA Press)

A worker cleans the statue of Yuri Gagarin, the first person who flew to space, ahead of Cosmonautics Day celebrated on April 12, in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday April 10, 2019. Cosmonautics Day marks when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly in space, in 1961, orbiting the earth once before making a safe landing. (Photo by Maxim Marmur/AP Photo)