Cai Xuzhe (; born May 1976)
is a Chinese
People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps
The People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps (PLAAC; ), also known as the Chinese Astronaut Corps (), is a Beijing-based sub-corps-level People's Liberation Army Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) unit directly under the PLASSF Space Systems Depar ...
(PLAAC)
taikonaut selected as part of the
Shenzhou program
The China Manned Space Program (CMS; ), also known as Project 921 () is a space program developed by the People's Republic of China and run by the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), designed to develop and enhance human spaceflight capabilities fo ...
.
Biography
Cai was born in
Shenzhou,
Hengshui
Hengshui () is a prefecture-level city in southern Hebei province, People's Republic of China, bordering Shandong to the southeast. At the 2010 census its population was 4,340,373 inhabitants whom 522,147 lived in the built-up (''or metro'') are ...
,
Hebei
Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, an ...
province in 1976.
[ He served as a ]fighter pilot
A fighter pilot is a military aviator trained to engage in air-to-air combat, air-to-ground combat and sometimes electronic warfare while in the cockpit of a fighter aircraft. Fighter pilots undergo specialized training in aerial warfare and ...
in the People's Liberation Army Air Force
The People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF; ), also known as the Chinese Air Force (中国空军) or the People's Air Force (人民空军), is an aerial service branch of the People's Liberation Army, the regular armed forces of the Peo ...
, and was subsequently selected to be an astronaut in 2010. His name was revealed as part of Group 2 in 2011.
He is currently in space onboard the Tiangong space station, as part of the Shenzhou 14
Shenzhou 14 () was a Chinese spaceflight that launched on 5 June 2022 at 02:44 UTC. The flight marked the ninth crewed Chinese spaceflight and the fourteenth flight of the Shenzhou program. The spacecraft carried three People's Liberation Army A ...
mission.
See also
* List of Chinese astronauts
This is a list of Chinese astronauts, sometimes called taikonauts. The list includes people trained by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft.
As the Chinese space program dev ...
References
External links
Taikonaut (yuhangyuan) Biography: Cai Xuzhe
Shenzhou program astronauts
People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps
People's Liberation Army Air Force personnel
Living people
1976 births
Spacewalkers
{{Astronaut-stub