This image provided by NASA shows parts of Europe and Africa very easily recognizable in this night time image shot by one of the Expedition 25 crew members aboard the International Space Station flying 220 miles above Earth on Thursday October 28, 2010. The view “looks” northward over Sicily and the “boot” of Italy, with the Mediterranean Sea representing most of the visible water in the view and the Adriatic Sea to the right of center. Tunisia is partially visible at left. Part of a docked Russian spacecraft and other components of the ISS are in the foreground. (Photo by AP Photo/NASA)

Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, uses a binocular, as Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, left, and chief of Russia's military's General Staff Valery Gerasimov, right, observe military exercises near the Baikal Lake on Wednesday, July 17, 2013. (Photo by Alexei Nikolsky/AP Photo/RIA Novosti/Presidential Press Service)

Rescue specialists for USA-1 drill through a concrete slab to rescue a victim from the scene of a mock disaster area during a training exercise at the Guardian Center in Perry, Georgia, March 25, 2014. A week of field training, the first of its kind at the 830-acre training site, to be open to the media, began Monday with the arrival of USA-1 from Fairfax, Virginia along with its sister team in Los Angeles, California. USA-1 has been deployed by the U.S. Agency for International Development to 30 foreign disasters, including earthquakes in Haiti, Armenia and Iran, the tsunami in Japan and the typhoon in the Philippines. (Photo by Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

Employees of a food stand take pictures of Titan, a robot created by England Cyberstein Robots, performing at the Danilovsly market in downtown of Moscow, Russia, 12 May 2014. Titan visited to Moscow to attend “Bal Robotov”, an interactive exhibition of the most recent advances in robotics which will be opened on 15 May in Artplay Moscow exhibition center. Titan worked alongside superstars including Will.i.am, Rihanna, Will Smith and Jackie Chan. (Photo by Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA)

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 woman at Foyles bookshop looks at a copy of J. K. Rowling's latest novel “The Casual Vacancy” which has gone on sale today starting at 8:00 am on September 27, 2012 in London, England. “The Casual Vacancy” is J. K. Rowling's first book aimed at an adult readership and is centered on a parish council election in a small West Country town. (Photo by Oli Scarf)

A member of the Indian company Margi Kathakali theatre performs during “Kijote Kathakali”, a Kathakali recital based on the Spanish classic “Don Quixote”, at the Niemeyer Center in Aviles, northern Spain, July 29, 2016. The performance and text captured the essence of the novel while sticking to the format of Kathakali. Kathakali is one of the major forms of classical Indian dance. (Photo by Eloy Alonso/Reuters)

A confiscated female orangutan smuggled from Indonesia looks out from a cage before being sent back home to Indonesia, at Khao Pratupchang Wildlife Breeding Center in Ratchaburi province, Thailand, 11 November 2015. According to media reports, Thailand will return fourteen smuggled orangutans to Indonesia on 12 November, after Thai authorities found them in 2010 by a roadside in Phuket province, apparently on their way to a private zoo. (Photo by Narong Sangnak/EPA)