China’s Second Female Astronaut Readies For Summer 2013 Mission

                                                                         wang-yaping-chinese-astronaut.jpg

             (photo Wikimedia Commons)

                       by David Parmer

Chinese Air Force Captain Wang Yaping, 35 will be one of a three-person crew aboard the next Shenzhou-10 mission scheduled for summer 2013. Wang will be the second Chinese woman in space. Shenzhou-10 will have a launch window between June and August 2013. The vehicle will be lifted into orbit by a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China’s Gansu province.

Shenzhou-10 will perform several automatic and manual docking maneuvers with the Tiangong-1 space station during the course of the mission. In addition, astronauts will give science lectures as they work to students on Earth to inspire enthusiasm for scientific study. (DP)

(Compiled from CCTV and Web sources) 

CCTV footage of Shenzhou-10 on YouTube:

http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20121111/100765.shtml