A Pakistani astronaut will join China's Shenzhou-24 crewed mission as a payload specialist, becoming the first foreign national to visit the Tiangong space station, the China Manned Space Agency announced.
A Pakistani astronaut will join the crew of China's Shenzhou-24 spacecraft on a mission that would make him the first foreign national to board Beijing's space station, the China Manned Space Agency announced on Saturday.
The astronaut will serve as a payload specialist, take a short flight in orbit, and then return to Earth aboard the Shenzhou-23 spacecraft, China's official news agency Xinhua reported. Shenzhou-23 has been docked at the station since May, when it carried the first astronaut from Hong Kong, Lai Ka-ying, to Tiangong. The agency has not named the astronaut and has not announced a launch date.
Two Pakistani pilots, Muhammad Zeeshan Ali and Khurram Daud, have spent months training at the China Astronaut Research and Training Center in Beijing, including intensive Chinese-language instruction, and one of them will be selected for the flight. The programme follows an agreement signed by China and Pakistan in February 2025 on astronaut selection, training and participation in Chinese space station missions. Tiangong, which means Heavenly Palace, has been fully operational since late 2022 and is staffed by rotating crews of three Chinese taikonauts; China has not previously allowed foreign astronauts aboard.
The announcement comes from the space agency itself, carried by Xinhua and reported by the Associated Press and Reuters. The two candidates' names and their training come from Xinhua's earlier reporting. The launch date and the identity of the flier have not been announced, and no date circulating elsewhere has been confirmed by the agency, so none is given here.
The flight would be the first joint mission involving Chinese and foreign astronauts in the history of China's manned space programme, and it opens Tiangong to international partners as China prepares for its first crewed lunar landing by 2030. The next step is for the agency to name the astronaut and set a launch date, which will show whether the mission flies before the end of the year.