China prepares for launch, names female astronaut June 15, 2012 -- Updated 0816 GMT (1616 HKT) People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force fighter pilot Liu Yang, as seen in March 2010, will be China's first woman in space. Launch time is set for 6:37 p.m. local time in northwest Gansu's province China aims to be third nation to perform a space docking China aspires to build a space station and conduct manned mission to the moon (CNN) -- China will launch its historic space docking mission Saturday along with its first female astronaut in space. Liu Yang has been selected to join Jing Haipeng and Liu Wang as part of a three-person crew aboard the Shenzhou-9, according to China's manned space docking program. A launch time is set for 6:37 p.m. local time (6:37 a.m. ET) at a satellite center in the northwestern Gansu province. The carrier rocket, the Long March-2F, was scheduled to start fueling Friday afternoon, and the launch ground and control systems are ready, state media reported. Read more about Chinese women making strides If all goes well, the Shenzhou-9 will dock with China's orbiting space laboratory, making the nation the third after the United States and Russia to complete a manned space docking. As a precaution in case of an emergency, one of the crewmembers will not board the lab, the space program said in February. China has big aspirations for its program and hopes to build a space station and conduct a manned mission to the moon. The Shenzhou-9 spacecraft and its carrier rocket as seen Saturday in northwest China's Gansu province. The orbiting Tiangong-1 space lab module was launched into space in September, and two months later it successfully completed China's first space docking with an unmanned spacecraft, Shenzhou-8, according to Xinhua news agency. China's efforts come as the United States refocuses its space program toward deep space exploration, and private companies such as SpaceX make strides toward the commercialization of spaceflight. Last month, SpaceX's unmanned Dragon capsule completed the first commercial mission to the International Space Station.