SPACE: China Launches 1st Female Astronaut and 2 Men to Space Lab. “China launched three astronauts into space Saturday (June 16), kicking off an ambitous test mission that marks the country’s first attempt to dock a manned spaceship in orbit and its first flight of a female astronaut. . . . If all goes according to plan, Shenzhou 9 will soon link up with the unmanned Tiangong 1 space lab, and China will become the third nation — after the United States and Russia — to perform a manned docking in Earth orbit.”