China is sending a female astronaut for a 6-month stay on its new space station

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Wang Yaping is one of the three astronauts aboard the Shenzhou 13 spaceflight mission set to launch early Saturday, local time. She will be the the first Chinese female astronaut to visit the latest China’s space station.

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Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images

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An artist’s rendering of the Tianhe core module of China’s Tiangong space station.

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Xia Yuan/Getty Images

An artist’s rendering of the Tianhe core module of China’s Tiangong space station.

Xia Yuan/Getty Images

The crew will stay aboard Tianhe, the first of three modules that will eventually comprise Tiangong. It launched in April and has already received one crew, who returned last month after three months on the station.

Tiangong, or «Heavenly Palace,» is the third Chinese station to carry the name. It’s expected to receive the last of its modules sometime next year.

Zhai, the mission commander, has said he expects the six months of weightlessness to be the biggest hurdle for the crew, calling it «a big challenge to our physical and mental situation.»

«We will, for sure, encounter some challenges in terms of physical and mental health, and also technical issues,» he said.

• space station
• Chinese taikonauts