Shenzhou-10 to put second woman in space

CHINA will send another female astronaut in space when the Shenzhou-10 spacecraft lifts off this summer.

Wang Yaping, a former air force pilot, will join a crew of three on Shenzhou-10 and will become only the second woman astronaut in space after Liu Yang who was on board the Shenzhou-9 mission in 2012.

Wang, 35, and her colleagues will work on an orbiting space lab module for 15 days between June and August, said Zhang Jianqi, director general of the China Space Foundation and the former deputy commander of the country's manned space program.

Wang, an air force lieutenant, was selected as a candidate for the Shenzhou-9 mission early last year along with Liu. Wang and Liu were both women pilots from the Wuhan Flight Unit.

Wang, who was born in a village in Yantai City in the east Shandong Province, is married and has a child. She started off as airfreight pilot with the Wuhan Flight Unit in 2001 and soon became an elite pilot after mastering four different types of aircraft.

She was involved in rescue work during the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 and piloted an aircraft for artificial rain mitigation during the Beijing Olympics. She has also taken part in several military exercises, according to media reports.

Wang was selected as the country's first batch of female astronauts in 2010 and was one of the two female candidates for the Shenzhou-9 mission. She has been described as "beautiful and quiet" by the domestic media.

Pang Zhihao, a researcher with the China Academy of Space Technology, said female astronauts are more "keen and sensitive and have better communication skills than their male counterparts." He said women were also good at dealing with relationships with their space partners, which would be an important issue on a long mission such as a trip to Mars.

The Shenzhou-10 will dock with the orbiting lab module Tiangong-1 several times. "The three astronauts will stay in orbit for 15 days, including 12 days when they will work inside the coupled complex of the Shenzhou-10 and Tiangong-1," said Zhou Jianping, head designer of China's manned space program.

Chinese astronauts carried out a manned docking with the module for the first time last June and lived and worked in it for about 10 days.