On 16 June 2012 China sent its first female astronaut into orbit. She is 33 year old Liu Yang, one of three astronauts on board the Shenzou IX spacecraft. Her colleagues are Jing Haipeng and Liu Wang - both in their forties, so Liu Yang is the youngest as well as the only woman.

The team will stay in space for 10 days. They will carry out some experiments and attempt a space docking. Their craft will dock with a space module which is now over 200 miles above the Earth. This is all part of preparations for China's first space station, which it hopes to build in the next years.

Liu Yang has only been training as an astronaut for two years. Before that she was a pilot in the air force. She told journalists that she was very proud to represent female Chinese citizens by going into space.