China appears posied to launch its first female taikonaut to orbit this coming June 2012 aboard the Shenzhou 9 mission to and dock with the now orbiting Tiangong 1 space lab. One of the two women will most likely be the first Chinese female in space later this year.
The Chinese do not officially reveal the names of their would-be space travellers until hours before each flight campaign, Western observers, and more recently Chinese 'netizens', have already identified the two FEMALE TAIKONAUTS AS PEOPLE'S LIBERATION ARMY AIR FORCE PILOTS, Major Liu Yang and Captain Wang Yaping. It is undoubtedly this duo who are competing for the coveted seat aboard Shenzhou, and a place in Chinese space history.
Chinese officials had already said that a training group of seven men - all from the original 1998 taikonaut team - and the two women had been pre-selected for the Shenzhou 9, and subsequent Shenzhou 10 missions. Western observers believe that they are almost certainly formed into three potential space crews, two mixed, and one all-male, reports NASA SPACEFLIGHT.COM.
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