Liu Yang (born October 6, 1978) is a Chinese pilot and astronaut who served as a crew member on the space mission Shenzhou 9. On June 16, 2012, Liu became the first Chinese woman in space.
This is the fourth crewed mission for China's Shenzhou program which lasted 12 days. Being the first crewed spacecraft to visit the Tiangong-1 space station, it brought up the astronauts Jing Haipeng, Liu Wang and the first Chinese female astronaut Lie Yang. They docked automatically to the station on 18 June. During their stay in the station, astronauts conducted various scientific and technological experiments, and performed manual re-docking on 24 June. Shenzhou 9 undocked on 29 June and landed safely back on Earth the same day.
Low Earth OrbitThe China National Space Administration (CNSA) is the national space agency of the People's Republic of China. It is responsible for the national space program and for planning and development of space activities. CNSA and China Aerospace Corporation (CASC) assumed the authority over space development efforts previously held by the Ministry of Aerospace Industry. The CNSA has many launch sites around China with their orbital sites located in Jiuquan, Xichang, Taiyuan and Wenchang.