Wang Yaping, China’s first woman astronaut to board the Tiangong space station, poses for photos inside the Tianhe core module. As one of the Shenzhou-13 crew, she is preparing to return to Earth with Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu after the six-month-long mission in orbit. Photo: Courtesy of China Manned Space Agency

Liu Yang was a crew member of the Shenzhou-9 space mission in June 2012, becoming China’s first woman astronaut in space. Photo: VCG

By boarding the Vostok-6 spacecraft on June 16, 1963, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel into space. Photo: VCG

Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya (left) who flew aboard Soyuz T-7 in 1982, takes training with Soviet space pilot Vladimir Dzhanibekov in 1984, the year Savitskaya became a crew member of the Soyuz T-12 mission, making her the first woman to go into the space twice and to perform a spacewalk. Photo: VCG

STS-7 astronaut Sally Ride (left) chats with others after arriving in Houston, U.S., with her husband astronaut Steve Hawley in June 1983. She is the first American woman and the third woman to visit space. Photo: VCG

Born in 1957 in France, Claudie Haigneré flew into space as a research astronaut for the Cassiopée mission in 1996. In October 2001, she entered space again, becoming the first woman astronaut in the European Union to enter space twice. Photo: The European Space Agency

Canadian astronaut Roberta Bondar sits in the Microgravity Vestibular Investigations rotator chair to begin an experiment in the science module aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-42 on Jan. 30, 1992. She is the first Canadian woman in space. Photo: IC Photo

American engineer and astronaut Mae Jemison works in zero gravity in the center aisle of the Spacelab Japan science module aboard OV-105 during NASA’s STS-47 mission on Sept. 20, 1992. Jemison served as mission specialist on the flight and is the first Black woman to travel into space. Photo: VCG

U.S. astronaut Shannon Lucid uses the microgravity of space to fabricate a chair with her legs during the off-duty time in the Spacelab module on Sept. 24, 1996. Photo: VCG

Japanese astronaut Chiaki Mukai entered the International Microgravity Laboratory 2 Spacelab science module during the Space Shuttle Columbia mission STS-65 in July 1994, making her the first Asian woman in space. Photo: VCG

South Korean astronaut Yi So-yeon became the first Korean in space after launching into the International Space Station aboard Soyuz TMA-12 on April 8, 2008. Photo: VCG

Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti from the European Space Agency rests in a chair after landing in a remote area near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on June 11, 2015. She spent 199 days in space. Photo: VCG

NASA astronaut Christina Koch is helped out of the Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft after landing near Zhezkazgan with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, and ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano, on Feb. 6, 2020. Koch stayed for 328 days in space, the longest-ever for a woman. Photo: VCG