Wu Jie (; born October 1963) is a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

military

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

and 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

Wu Jie was born in

Zhengzhou Zhengzhou (; ), also spelt Zheng Zhou and alternatively romanized as Chengchow, is the capital and largest city of Henan Province in the central part of the People's Republic of China. Located in north-central Henan, it is one of the National ...

Henan Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...

province,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. In 1987 he graduated from 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 ...

(PLAAF) Engineering College and later the PLAAF Flight College. A fighter pilot in the PLAAF, he had accumulated 1100 flight-hours. In November 1996, he and

Li Qinglong Li Qinglong (; born August 1962) is a Chinese pilot selected as part of the Shenzhou program. Biography Li Qinglong was born in Dingyuan, Anhui province, China. In 1987 he graduated from the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) Missile Co ...

, started training at the

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center The Yuri A. Gagarin State Scientific Research-and-Testing Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC; Russian language, Russian: Центр подготовки космонавтов имени Ю. А. Гагарина) is a Russian training facility res ...

. When they returned to China a year later, they acted as the trainers for the first group of Shenzhou astronauts. Before the flight of

Shenzhou 5 Shenzhou 5 (, see § Etymology) was the first human spaceflight mission of the Chinese space program, launched on 15 October 2003. The Shenzhou spacecraft was launched on a Long March 2F launch vehicle. There had been four previous flights ...

it was thought that he or Li Qinglong would fly the mission, that was eventually flown by

Yang Liwei Yang Liwei (; born 21 June 1965) is a major general, former military pilot, and former taikonaut at the People's Liberation Army. In October 2003, Yang became the first person sent into space by the Chinese space program. This mission, Shenzh ...

. Wu was then one of the six astronauts in the final training for

Shenzhou 6 Shenzhou 6 () was the second human spaceflight of the Chinese space program, launched on October 12, 2005 on a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The Shenzhou spacecraft carried a crew of Fèi Jùnlóng (费俊龙) ...

External links

Wu Jie
at the

Encyclopedia Astronautica The ''Encyclopedia Astronautica'' is a reference web site on space travel. A comprehensive catalog of vehicles, technology, astronauts, and flights, it includes information from most countries that have had an active rocket research program, f ...

. Accessed 23 July 2005.
Spacefacts biography of Wu Jie
* 1963 births Living people People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps Shenzhou program People from Zhengzhou People's Liberation Army Air Force personnel {{china-mil-bio-stub