BEIJING (MCT) It might not have been a giant step for mankind, but the launch Saturday of a piloted space capsule to dock with Chinas space station prototype marked the countrys breakthrough into the exclusive club once made up only of the United States and Russia.

And as far as womankind is concerned, there was another first. One of the three astronauts in the Shenzhou 9 capsule is 33-year-old Liu Yang, the first Chinese woman in space.

Shenzhou 9 was launched at 6:37 p.m. against a vivid blue sky from the Jiuquan satellite launch center at the edge of the Gobi desert. Televised nationally, the launch prompted a round of applause in the command center as the capsule separated from its carrier rocket and entered orbit.

Todays successful launch is a great first step, CCTV host Kang Hui said. I hope the astronauts will bring us more good news like this in the coming days.

The trickiest part of the 13-day mission will come when the capsule docks with the Tiangong 1 space module, a prototype of a space station about the size of a school bus, which is orbiting approximately 213 miles above Earth. The docking is expected Monday.

The same docking procedure was carried out in November by an unmanned capsule, the Shenzhou 8, but the degree of difficulty is greater when carrying a crew.

The Chinese were excluded from the International Space Station by a vote of the U.S. Congress, citing fear of technology transfers. The Chinese have said they will build their own, smaller station by 2020, the year funding for the International Space Station expires.

Chinas appetite and budget for space exploration appears to be growing as others are getting out of the business.

Ironically, by the time they finish their space station in the early 2020s, the Chinese might be the only people left up there. Absent changes in current U.S., Russian and European space policies, the International Space Station will be decommissioned and deorbited in 2020, analyst Gregory Kulacki noted in a report last week by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Chinas objective is to test docking mechanisms and life-support systems that will be essential if Beijing is to achieve its objective of operating its own space station. The Chinese, who sent their first man into space in 2003, have also said they want to send a man to the moon. Continued...

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China launches space capsule