Wang Haoze? China’s Only Woman Spaceflight Engineer Set For New Mission

Sherazur Rahman##

On October 31, China successfully launched three astronauts to its indigenously built Tiangong space station, including Wang Haoze, the country’s first civilian female astronaut. The team has docked to the space station after a journey of more than six hours from earth. They were launched aboard the Shenzhou-19 spaceship at 4:27 am Beijing time last Wednesday.

Wang Haoze will stay at the space station for the next six months, performing various scientific experiments and engaging in spacewalks with her fellow astronauts. As a nuclear rocket scientist, she plans to conduct research on new rocket engines while in orbit. According to the mission plan, she is set to return to Earth on November 4, 2024.

Wang Haoze was born in 1990 in Luanping County, Chengde, Hebei Province, China, to a father employed as a traffic police officer and a mother who worked as a middle school teacher. Upon her admission to Southeast University, where she majored in Thermal and Power Engineering, Wang joined the Chinese Communist Party in December 2009. She also participated in the university’s track and field team, frequently representing Southeast University at the Jiangsu Provincial Games, while consistently achieving excellent academic results. Consequently, she was assured admission to pursue a master’s degree in Engineering Thermal Physics, specialising in plasma detonation. Before completing her master’s degree, she joined the China Aerospace Science and Technology Group (CASTG) to engage in the preliminary research of rocket engines. Subsequently, she participated in the third cohort of China’s astronaut selection and was officially chosen as one of the astronauts in September 2020.

In 2023, she was chosen for the Shenzhou 19 crew, becoming China’s first female aerospace flight engineer and the nation’s third female astronaut, as well as the second astronaut from an ethnic minority, following Zhang Xiaoguang, who is also Manchu.Moreover, China aims to establish a permanent lunar base station by 2035, heralding a new era in space science and technology.#