China’s first woman to take a spacewalk

Wang Yaping is the first female Chinese taikonaut to take a spacewalk. The mission lasted six hours, during which Wang and her male colleague Zhai Zhigang prepared to expand the Chinese space station Tiangong.

Wang, 41, was sent into space with two other taikonauts last month to perform maintenance work on the Tianhe module of the Chinese space station Tiangong. According to the American ABC News, the Chinese astronauts were also preparing there for the expansion of the Chinese space station.

That station should contain three modules by the end of 2022, including a Mengtian and a Wentian module. With the Tiangong space station, China wants to reinforce its own space ambitions. The country launched a rocket containing a Mars rover to the red planet this summer. That rover took some photos from the Martian surface, which the Chinese space agency shared with the world. The rover completed its primary missions at the end of August and will continue to explore Mars for approximately 92 days.