Wang Yaping becomes first Chinese woman to walk in space

Astronaut Wang Yaping became the first Chinese woman to walk in space, authorities said yesterday, as her team completed a six-hour stint outside the Tiangong space station as part of its ongoing construction.

Tiangong - meaning "heavenly palace" - is the latest achievement in China's drive to become a major space power, after landing a rover on Mars and sending probes to the Moon.

Its core module entered orbit earlier this year, with the station expected to be operational by 2022.

Wang and fellow astronaut Zhai Zhigang left the station's main module on Sunday evening, spending more than six hours outside installing equipment and carrying out tests alongside the station's robotic service arm, according to the China Manned Space agency.

The third member of the crew, Ye Guangfu, assisted from inside the station, CMS said on its website.

"This marks the first extravehicular activity of the Shenzhou-13 crew, and it is also the first in China's space history involving the participation of a woman astronaut," said CMS in a statement early yesterday.

"The whole process was smooth and successful," the agency added, declaring it finished.

Tiangong is expected to operate for at least 10 years, and the three astronauts are the second group to stay there. Wang is the first woman to visit.

Mission commander Zhai is a former fighter pilot who performed China's first spacewalk in 2008, while Ye is a People's Liberation Army pilot.

Sunday's operation came just weeks after Wang, Zhai and Ye blasted off from the Jiuquan launch center in northwestern China's Gobi desert.

The Tianhe module of the station will be connected next year to two more sections, Mengtian and Wentian. The completed station will weigh about 66 tons, much smaller than the International Space Station, which launched its first module in 1998 and weighs around 450 tons.

Three spacewalks are planned to install equipment in preparation for the station's expansion, while the crew will also assess living conditions in the Tianhe module and conduct experiments in space medicine and other fields.

The team is expected to spend six months at the station.

The previous record-breaking crew, who made the first mission to Tiangong, returned to Earth in September after spending three months there.

China's military-run space program plans to send multiple crews to the station over the next two years to make it fully functional.