China's first woman astronaut soars into space

China has successfully launched its most ambitious space mission yet, sending the country's first female astronaut into space alongside two male colleagues.
Female astronaut Liu Yang, 33, is set to become a national hero to a billion people after the successful blast-off on Saturday.
The mother of one is on the Shenzhou 9 capsule which lifted off at 10.30am from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre on the edge of the Gobi Desert.It being sent into orbit on a Long March rocket fired to the Tiangong-1 'Heavenly Palace' space station.

Shorty after lift off all the space capsules systems were found to be working normally and just over 10 minutes later it opened its solar panels and entered orbit around earth. Ms Yang, a military pilot, is with Jing Haipeng and Liu Wang and the trio will dock with a prototype space lab launched last year.The will work on the space station for about a week in what the Chinese hope will be a key step toward building a permanent space station.
Chang Wanquan, a People's Liberation Army general and the space programme chief, declared the launch a success.
Two of the astronauts will live and work inside the module to test its life-support systems while the third will remain in the capsule to deal with any unexpected emergencies.
China hopes to join the U.S. and Russia as the only countries to send independently maintained space stations into orbit.