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Saturday, June 16, 2012

China launches its first woman into space

Mission commander Jing Haipeng, right, a veteran astronaut who has gone to space twice already, together with fellow astronauts Liu Wang and Liu Yang, left, China's first female astronaut, as they wave to the crowd prior to boarding the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft -- China's fourth manned space mission -- which blasts off from the Jiuquan space base, northwest China's Gansu province in the remote Gobi desert on June 16, 2012. China launched its most ambitious space mission to date, sending its first female astronaut to the final frontier and bidding to achieve the country's first manual space docking.