Chinese officials have not made it clear if there will be one person aboard or two. The Shenzhou spacecraft can hold two people, perhaps three, analysts say.

There is a Chinese astronaut corps: 14 individuals have been in training for the piloted Shenzhou flights.

These individuals have been called yuhang yuans ("astronauts"), and have also been referred to as "taikonauts." Three of them have reportedly been under consideration at the launch complex this week.

Their training program dates back to March 1995, when it was announced that two Chinese trainees for space travel had been selected. These two subsequently completed a one-year long general course at Russia's Zvezdny Gorodok cosmonaut training center. It is thought that these two individuals have trained the other 12 candidate pilots under consideration for piloted space missions from China.

All of China's space candidate pilots, it is believed, have been drawn from the country's top jet fighter pilot pool. They are reportedly all under 30 years of age, each with a flying time of over 1,000 hours.

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