Cai Xuzhe
Cai Xuzhe | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||||
| Born | May 1976 (age 48) | ||||||
| Status | Active | ||||||
| Space career | |||||||
| PLAAC astronaut | |||||||
Previous occupation |  People's Liberation Army Air Force pilot | ||||||
| Rank | Senior Colonel, People's Liberation Army Ground Force | ||||||
Time in space | 235 days, 8 hours, 37 minutes (currently in space) | ||||||
| Selection | Chinese Group 2 (2010)[1] | ||||||
Total EVAs | 3 | ||||||
Total EVA time | 18 hours, 52 minutes | ||||||
| Missions | Shenzhou 14 Shenzhou 19 | ||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 蔡旭哲 | ||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 蔡旭哲 | ||||||
| |||||||
Cai Xuzhe (Chinese: 蔡旭哲; born May 1976)[2] is a Chinese People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps (PLAAC) taikonaut selected as part of the Shenzhou program.
Biography
[edit]Cai was born in Shenzhou, Hengshui, Hebei province in 1976.[2] His grandparents come from a scholarly family, teaching in the downtown county and village, respectively, and were veteran party members before the founding of the People's Republic of China.[3] His third uncle was a soldier.[3] Cai graduated from the Baoding Branch of the Changchun Flight Academy of the Air Force.[3] He served as a fighter pilot in the People's Liberation Army Air Force, and was subsequently selected to be an astronaut in 2010.[4] His name was revealed as part of Group 2 in 2011.[5]
He was on board the Tiangong space station as part of the Shenzhou 14 mission in 2022, spending 182 days in space.[6] He completed two spacewalks on 17 September and 17 November both with Chen Dong.
He returned to Tiangong on 29 October 2024 as the commander of the Shenzhou 19 mission.[7] Then, on 17 December 2024, during this mission's first EVA, he broke the record with Song Lingdong for the longest spacewalk in human history, of 9 hours and 6 minutes, with the assistance of the space station's robotic arms and ground-based scientific personnel, completed tasks such as the installation of space debris protection devices, inspection, and maintenance of external equipment and facilities.[8]
Personal life
[edit]Cai married Wang Yanqing (王颜晴), who is a nurse in a PLA military hospital.[3]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Taikonaut Biography: Cai Xuzhe". 27 June 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2022.
- ^ a b "神舟十四號三位航天員陳冬、劉洋、蔡旭哲簡介" (in Chinese). 4 June 2022. Retrieved 4 June 2022.
- ^ a b c d Zhan Kang (占康) (2002). 蔡旭哲：十二年等待终圆太空梦 [Cai Xuzhe: twelve years of waiting have finally fulfilled the space dream]. Celebrities' Biographies (in Chinese). 602. Zhengzhou, Henan: Henan Literature and Art Publishing House: 17–20. ISSN 1002-6282.
- ^ "Cosmonaut Selection: China". spacefacts.de. 16 June 2021. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
- ^ "Names of China's Secret Astronauts Revealed by Autographed Envelope". Space.com. 7 December 2011. Retrieved 2 June 2022.
- ^ "Cai Xuzhe". Twitter. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
- ^ https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/china-launches-3-astronauts-to-tiangong-space-station-on-shenzhou-19-mission
- ^ Jones, Andrew (17 December 2024). "Shenzhou-19 astronauts complete record-breaking 9-hour spacewalk". SpaceNews. Retrieved 18 December 2024.
External links
[edit]
People currently in low Earth orbit | |||||
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| International Space Station (Expedition 72) |
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| Tiangong space station (Expedition 8) |
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