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 | 276 days, 13 hours, 15 minutes (currently in space) | ||||||
| Selection | Chinese Group 2 (2010) | ||||||
Total EVAs | 4 | ||||||
Total EVA time | 27 hours, 9 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) is a Chinese People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps (PLAAC) taikonaut selected as part of the Shenzhou program.
Biography
Cai was born in Shenzhou, Hengshui, Hebei province in 1976. 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. His third uncle was a soldier. Cai graduated from the Baoding Branch of the Changchun Flight Academy of the Air Force. He served as a fighter pilot in the People's Liberation Army Air Force, and was subsequently selected to be an astronaut in 2010. His name was revealed as part of Group 2 in 2011.
He was on board the Tiangong space station as part of the Shenzhou 14 mission in 2022, spending 182 days in space. 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. 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.
Personal life
Cai married Wang Yanqing (王颜晴), who is a nurse in a PLA military hospital.
See also
References
- ^ "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
