A Pakistani astronaut will fly to China's space station this year as part of the Shenzhou-24 mission, making them the first foreign visitor to the Chinese orbital outpost. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, citing the China Manned Space Agency, reported the plan, which would also mark China's first crewed spaceflight carrying a foreign national.
The Pakistani will serve as a payload specialist during a short-duration stay aboard the station before returning to Earth on the Shenzhou-23 spacecraft. China has not yet named the astronaut, and no launch date for the mission has been announced.
Two Pakistani pilots, Zeeshan Ali and Khurram Daud, have been training at the China Astronaut Research and Training Center in Beijing for several months, and one of them is widely expected to be the selected candidate. Pakistan's space officials had earlier signaled their interest in a crewed role, comments that Reuters reported in September.
The flight is framed as a product of bilateral cooperation under Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative, and it fits into a broader push by China to use its space program as a tool of diplomacy. For Pakistan, it represents a significant step into human spaceflight, a field previously dominated by a small number of nations.
Credit. Based on reporting for The Express Tribune. Is this your work? Write to us.
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