Cai Xuzhe | |||||||
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Born | May 1976 (age 47) | ||||||
Status | Active | ||||||
Nationality | Chinese | ||||||
Space career | |||||||
PLAAC astronaut | |||||||
Previous occupation | PLAAF fighter pilot | ||||||
Rank | Senior Colonel, PLASSF | ||||||
Time in space | 182 days, 9 hours and 25 minutes | ||||||
Selection | Chinese Group 2 [1] | ||||||
Total
EVAs | 2 | ||||||
Total EVA time | 9 hours, 46 minutes | ||||||
Missions | Shenzhou 14 | ||||||
Chinese name | |||||||
Simplified Chinese | 蔡旭哲 | ||||||
Traditional Chinese | 蔡旭哲 | ||||||
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Cai Xuzhe ( Chinese: 蔡旭哲; born May 1976) [2] is a Chinese People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps (PLAAC) taikonaut selected as part of the Shenzhou program.
Cai was born in Shenzhou, Hengshui, Hebei province in 1976. [2] His grandparents come from a scholarly family, teaching in the downtown county and village, respectively, and were veteran party members before the founding of the People's Republic of China. [3] His third uncle was a soldier. [3] Cai graduated from the Baoding Branch of the Changchun Flight Academy of the Air Force. [3] He served as a fighter pilot in the People's Liberation Army Air Force, and was subsequently selected to be an astronaut in 2010. [4] His name was revealed as part of Group 2 in 2011. [5]
He was on board the Tiangong space station, as part of the Shenzhou 14 mission. [6] He completed two spacewalks on 17 September and 17 November both with Chen Dong.
Cai married Wang Yanqing (王颜晴), who is a nurse in a PLA military hospital. [3]