China Snapshot: Beijing Puts 1st Woman Astronaut Into Space

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Christina Wang and Iris Gao write for EA:

China made history last Saturday when it launched a spacecraft sending the nation's first female astronaut into space.

The Long March 2F rocket, carrying the manned spacecraft Shenzhou IX, took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu Province in northwestern China. Inside the capsule was Liu Yang, 33, with commanding officer Jing Haipeng and Liu Wang.

At the sending-off ceremony, Wu Bangguo, the head of China's legislature, saluted the three astronauts, "The country and the people are looking forward to your successful return."

The main task of the mission was completed Monday, with a manual docking procedure with the orbiting space lab Tiangong-1. China succeeded in an automated rendezvous and docking between an unmanned spacecraft and Tiangong-1 last year, and a successful manual procedure will be a large step towards a manned space station around 2020.