Status: Active
1/27/1980 –
Nationality: Chinese
Type: Government
First Flight: 6/11/2013
Last Flight: 10/15/2021
Colonel Wang Yaping is a Chinese military pilot and astronaut. Wang was the second female astronaut to be named by the CNSA, and the second Chinese woman in space.
She was a candidate for the space mission Shenzhou 9 in 2012. However, Liu Yang was selected over her for the historic mission of the first Chinese female space traveller. Wang was a member of the backup crew for SZ-9.
Wang became the second Chinese female astronaut as a member of the Shenzhou 10 spaceship crew, which orbited the earth in June 2013, and of the Tiangong-1 orbiting space station with which it docked. She was the first member of the crew announced, in April, while the remainder of the crew were announced in June. Wang Yaping was one of two women in space on the 50th anniversary of Vostok 6, the first spaceflight by a woman, Valentina Tereshkova. The other woman in space on 16 June 2013 was Karen Nyberg, an American astronaut aboard the International Space Station. While aboard Tiangong-1, Wang conducted scientific experiments and taught a physics lesson to Chinese students by live television broadcast.
China National Space Administration - CNSA
- Type: Government
- Abbreviation: CNSA
- Administration: Administrator: Tang Dengjie
- Founded: 1993
- Spacecraft: Shenzhou
- Country: CHN
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) is the national space agency of the People’s Republic of China. It is responsible for the national space program and for planning and development of space activities. CNSA and China Aerospace Corporation (CASC) assumed the authority over space development efforts previously held by the Ministry of Aerospace Industry. The CNSA has many launch sites around China with their orbital sites located in Jiuquan, Xichang, Taiyuan and Wenchang.
