Liu Yang

Liu Yang / Jing Haipeng

Major Liu Yang is a Chinese pilot and astronaut travelling on the space mission Shenzhou 9.

On 16 June 2012, Liu became the first Chinese woman in space. Liu joined the People’s Liberation Army Air Force in 1997 and qualified as a pilot before becoming the deputy head of a flight unit, holding the PLAAF rank of major. Liu was selected for the crew of Shenzhou 9, the first manned mission to the Chinese space station Tiangong 1, along with Jing Haipeng and Liu Wang. Liu became the first female Chinese astronaut to go into space. Upon arrival at Tiangong 1, Liu is expected to perform experiments in space medicine. The mission was launched on 16 June 2012, 49 years to the day after the first female space traveller, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was launched. The Shenzhou-9 has performed China’s first manned space docking mission with the orbiting Tiangong-1 space lab module.

The Shenzhou-9 spacecraft blasted off from the Jiuquan satellite launch centre in north-western Gansu province at 6.37 p.m.

Accompanying Ms. Liu Yang on the mission are two fellow People’s Liberation Army (PLA) pilots, Liu Wang and Jing Haipeng, who on Saturday became China’s first astronaut to travel into space twice.