Zhai Zhigang Credit - www.spacefacts.de

Personal: Male, Married, One son. Born in Longjiang, Heilongjiang, China. PLA Air Force PLA Air Force PLA Air Force

Astronaut Career

Astronaut Group: China Group 1 - 1998. Active Entered space service: January 1998.

In the 05/2003 issue of Fliegerrevue, this was one of 12 new names listed as Chinese astronauts in training. The day before the scheduled launch of Shenzhou-5, China's first manned flight, he was named as the second finalist or back-up crew member for the flight. In his service as a PLAAF fighter pilot he had accumulated 1000 hours flight time.

19 November 1998 - China Astronaut Training Group 1 selected.. Selection of astronauts to fly the Project 921 / Shenzhou manned spacecraft began at the end of 1995. Only PLAAF pilots were considered. Review of service records identified 1504 candidates, further reduced to 886 after stricter screening. In the summer of 1996, 60 candidates passed initial testing at their home bases and were sent to Beijing for final tests and interviews. By April 1997 the candidate list had been pared down to 20, and the final 12 were selected at the end of 1997. The group was officially established in January 1998. In March, 1998, the two Chinese astronauts trained in Russia in 1996, who were also the trainers of this first group of 12 cosmonauts, joined the group officially as candidates for future spaceflights, bringing the total to 14.

The highly conservative mission plan was for Yang to remain in the Shenzhou re-entry capsule for the entire 21-hour mission, and not to enter the orbital module. He had two rest periods of three hours each, and was scheduled to eat once or twice meals of what was said to be a superior form of Chinese space food. Frequent communications sessions, including colour television links to the spacecraft, were made possible by China's four tracking ships deployed in the oceans of the world.

As the spacecraft was in its 21st orbit, the orbital module separated. It would stay in the 343 km orbit for a planned six-month military imaging reconnaissance mission. Retrofire was commanded via a tracking ship in the Atlantic off the coast of Africa. Shenzhou-5 landed only 4.8 km from the aim-point in Inner Mongolia with the parachute being sighted by the ground recovery forces prior to landing. Yang landed after 21 hours 23 minutes aloft.