Pakistani astronaut to enter Chinese space station

This screen image captured at Beijing Aerospace Control Center on Jan 20, 2025 shows Shenzhou-19 astronaut Song Lingdong leaving China's orbiting space station for extravehicular activities. - Photo: Xinhua

ISLAMABAD: The China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) and the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) signed a cooperation agreement on the spaceflight of Pakistani astronaut to the Chinese space station here on Friday (Feb 28).

Under the agreement, the Chinese government will select and train a group of Pakistani astronauts, and one of them will be the first foreign astronaut to enter the Chinese space station.

The selection process will last about a year, and the Pakistani astronauts will join a comprehensive and systematic training camp in China.

After that, Pakistani astronauts will carry out short-term flight missions in batches together with their Chinese counterparts in the space station in the next few years.

In the presence of Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the agreement was signed by Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the CMSEO and Muhammad Yousuf Khan, chairman of the SUPARCO at the Prime Minister's House. - China Daily/ANN