China to send second woman into space today

The Shenzhou-10 manned spacecraft will be launched on a Long Marck rocket at 5:38 pm local time on Tuesday. It is part of a mission to build a space lab of its own to rival Mir, being run by Russia and the US Beijing (PTI): China will send its second woman astronaut into space on Tuesday as part of its longest mission yet, as the country works towards building a Spacelab of its own to rival Mir, being run by Russia and the US. Shenzhou-10 manned spacecraft will be launched on a Long Marck rocket at 5:38 pm local time on Tuesday. Wang Yaping, 35, the second woman to go to space after Liu Yang last year, will be onboard while the mission will be commanded by Nie Haisheng and will have Zhang Xiaoguang as the third crew member. The spacecraft will travel in the space for 15 days and go through two docking tests with the orbiting space lab module Tiangong-1, one automatic and the other manual. This is the second such mission built as China's first Spacelab which was expected to be fully ready by 2020 by which time Mir, which currently orbiting was expected to complete its mission.