Astronaut from Pakistan will be 1st international visitor to China's Tiangong space station

China is training Pakistani astronauts for selection for a short-duration visit to its Tiangong space station.

"Two selected Pakistani astronauts will participate in training together with Chinese astronauts. One of them will be scheduled to carry out a short-duration flight mission as a payload expert," Zhang Jingbo, spokesperson for the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), told reporters on Thursday (Oct. 30).

Zhang was speaking at a press conference at Jiuquan spaceport a day ahead of the launch of the Shenzhou 21 crewed mission. Shenzhou 21 launched on Friday (Oct. 31), sending commander Zhang Lu and rookie astronauts Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang to Tiangong.

China and Pakistan signed a cooperation agreement on sending an astronaut to Tiangong in February of this year. A preliminary astronaut selection round is currently being conducted in Pakistan, while the secondary and final selections will be carried out in China, according to Zhang.

"During the flight, in addition to performing the crew's daily duties, they will also undertake scientific experiments for Pakistan," Zhang explained.

Zhang did not state on which mission the Pakistani astronaut will fly. When that happens, they will take one of three seats aboard a Shenzhou spacecraft, launching on a Long March 2F rocket from Jiuquan in the Gobi Desert. Shenzhou 22 is set to launch in around six months time, with the crew replacing the Shenzhou 21 astronauts aboard Tiangong. Shenzhou 23 will launch about one year from now.

Although CMSA has not confirmed details, the short-duration nature of the international astronaut visit suggests that the Pakistani astronaut will fly to Tiangong aboard a Shenzhou spacecraft with two Chinese crewmates, stay aboard the station for a number of days, then return to Earth with two of the three crewmembers from the previous mission, who will have completed their customary six months in space. That would leave one Chinese astronaut to complete the country's first full one-year stint aboard Tiangong in a continuous stay.

The Tiangong space station is a three-module orbital outpost that was completed in late 2022. China aims to keep the space station operational and permanently occupied for at least a decade, with the facility expected to outlive the much larger International Space Station. Pakistan also partners with China on the latter's International Lunar Research Station, planned for construction in the 2030s.