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 United States.
The Shenzhou-10 manned spacecraft will be launched on a long March rocket at 5:38 pm tomorrow, China's manned space program spokesperson, Wu Ping told the media.
Wang Yaping, 35, the second woman to go into 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. Yaping hails from a farmer's family from East China missed the chance last year to become the first Chinese woman to go to space. An airforce pilot, she lost it narrowly to Yang.