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 tunnel with electric switches are seen in Josip Broz Tito's underground secret bunker (ARK) in Konjic, October 16, 2014. In the early 1950s, Josip Broz Tito, the late leader of the former Yugoslavia, ordered the building of the secret bunker, located 900 feet (270 m) underground and near the Bosnian town of Konjic, to safeguard the country's ruling class in case of a nuclear attack. Construction at the complex, which had a cost equivalent price tag of $4.6 billion, continued until 1979, the year before Tito died. (Photo by Dado Ruvic/Reuters)

A mother raise her glass filled with 2017 Beaujolais Nouveau wine as she holds her child in a colored hot water “wine bath” at Hakone Kowakien Yunessun hot spring resort in Hakone, west of Tokyo, Japan, 16 November 2017, on the day of the Beaujolais Nouveau official release. With Germany and the United States, Japan is a major market for the Beaujolais Nouveau. (Photo by Franck Robichon/EPA/EFE)

July gestures next to her boyfriend Jason Schaller while they are suspended from hooks pierced through their skins by professional body artist Wei Yilaien at a bar in Shanghai, China September 16, 2018. “I like being unique and I don't like doing things that many people are aware of and would accept”, said Wei, 24, who staged the show of extreme body piercing in China's normally buttoned down financial capital. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

Indian Runner ducks march past farm buildings at the Vergenoegd wine estate near Cape Town, South Africa, May 16, 2016. Each day, a quack squad of killer ducks are released for the first of two sorties at South Africa's Vergenoegd wine farm in Stellenbosch. Their mission – seek and destroy thousands of pests out to ruin the season's harvest. Fanning out across the vineyards, some 1,000 Indian Runner ducks hone in on their hidden targets with uncanny precision, locating the tiny white dune snails feasting on budding vines. (Photo by Mike Hutchings/Reuters)

A picture made available in 01 July 2016 shows a 16-meter-long and 6.5-meter-high model of a Spinosaurus installed by employees of the dinosaur park in Muenchenhagen in the region of Hannover, Germany, 28 June 2016. The model is considered the only replica of this dinosaur species worldwide. The outdoor museum at Lake Steinhude shows more than 230 true-to-scale replica of dinosaurs. (Photo by Holger Hollemann/EPA)

In this Tuesday, March 12, 2019 photo, a visitor takes part in an immersive experience showing visitors how dogs see from inside the head of a dog at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. A new exhibit at a Los Angeles museum examines the relationship between dogs and humans and explores why the two species seem to think so much alike and get along so well. “Dogs! A Science Tail” opens Saturday, March 16, 2019, at the California Science Center. (Photo by Richard Vogel/AP Photo)

In this Thursday, May 16, 2013 file photo, Finland's Krista Siegfrids, second right, kisses a dancer as she performs her song “Marry Me” during the second semifinal of the Eurovision Song Contest at the Malmo Arena in Malmo, Sweden. That was the first girl-on-girl kiss in the history of the annual competition. Previously, organizers had sought to prevent similar embraces citing the competition's status as a family event. (Photo by Alastair Grant/AP Photo)