An astronaut from Pakistan is set to launch on China's Shenzhou 24 mission in the coming weeks and become the first-ever international visitor to the Tiangong space station.
A pair of astronaut candidates from Pakistan have been training at the Astronaut Centre of China in Beijing, following an agreement reached between China and Pakistan in Islamabad in February 2025 and a subsequent selection process.
China's human spaceflight agency confirmed in a Nov. 7 press statement that the upcoming Shenzhou 24 mission will carry one of the astronauts. The agency also released a mission patch.
"China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic cooperative partners," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Nov. 9. "Having the Pakistani astronaut on board China's spaceships will mark the first-ever joint mission of Chinese and foreign astronauts in the history of China's manned space program."
It is not yet known which of the two candidates will fly on Shenzhou 24. They were named in Pakistani press reports as Muhammad Zeeshan Ali and Khurram Daud, both pilots from the country's military forces. The pair were chosen from a wider pool of around 20 finalists.
The chosen candidate will fly as a payload specialist on Shenzhou 24 along with two Chinese colleagues, while the other will be on standby as a backup. While the Chinese astronauts will be starting a six-month-long stay in space, the Pakistani astronaut will spend roughly a week in orbit aboard Tiangong during a standard crew rotation period. He will then return to Earth aboard the departing Shenzhou 23 spacecraft, along with two Chinese astronauts who will have completed a six-month-long stay in orbit.
The arrangement means changes to China's usual "three in, three out" Tiangong crew rotations. One of the three Shenzhou 23 astronauts, who arrived at Tiangong on May 24, will stay aboard and complete China's first-ever year-long stay in orbit, while the Pakistani astronaut will take their seat aboard Shenzhou 23 to return home.
During his stay in space, the Pakistani astronaut will be responsible for four research payloads selected from more than 300 proposals, according to Pakistan's space agency, SUPARCO.
China has not announced a timeline for the launch of the Shenzhou 24 mission, but it is expected to lift off before the end of November. The Shenzhou 23 astronauts currently aboard Tiangong are closing in on 180 days in orbit, nearing an end to their six months in space.
Shenzhou 24 will launch from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert on a Long March 2F rocket. The identities of the crew for China's human spaceflight missions are typically closely guarded, and will only be revealed in a press conference a day ahead of launch. Shenzhou 24's Long March 2F rocket will be rolled out to the pad around a week ahead of launch.
The partnership between the two countries has already produced Chinese-launched Pakistani satellites, including a lunar cubesat, and a Pakistani-built rover due to fly on the Chang'e-8 lunar landing mission.
