Shenzhou-11 astronaut celebrates birthday in space

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Jing Haipeng, the chief commander of the Shenzhou-11 spaceship, will celebrate his 50th birthday in space today. All eyes will be on Jing and his crewmate Chen Dong, to see if they take time out during China’s longest ever manned space mission to mark the older man’s half century.

Snippets of conversations between the two astronauts have already gone viral on social media a week after the men were launched into space. The pair clearly have a good relationship, and veteran Jing is taking on an older brother role. When Chen took his first glimpse outside, Jing said to him, “Look outside” and “Feels cool, huh?”

Indeed, Jing is on his third trip to space, and is one of China’s most experienced astronauts. He completed the Shenzhou-7 and Shenzhou-9 manned space missions in 2008 and 2012 respectively. And this time, he is set to spend 30 days with space newcomer Chen in the Tiangong-2 space lab.

WHERE DREAMS BEGIN

Born in 1966, Jing Haipeng has stayed in excellent physical shape throughout his career. Aside from the intensive training required for space travel, his favorite exercise is playing basketball. And it was a basketball game that helped put him on the path to a lifelong dream.

Many years ago, when Jing was a high school student, he was playing a match against another school. Although few people can recall the result, the future astronaut still remembers the poster he saw after the match. It was a recruitment advertisement for the Air Force, on which a pilot stood behind an airplane. He went back home and told his father, “I want to be a pilot!”

In 1985, Jing enrolled at the Baoding Aviation School (now called Aviation University of Air Force). His dream of becoming a pilot was about to come true.

FLY HIGHER

In the 1990s, China started to put together its first team of astronauts from a group of elite fighter pilots. The selection had to be rigorous, given the many challenges astronauts encounter in space, such as being weightless and dealing with emergencies. With a safe flight record of 1,200 hours, Jing Haipeng was selected as a member of China’s first batch of astronauts in 1998.

Jing’s first name is appropriate. In traditional Chinese legend, Peng refers to a big bird “who mounts upon a great wind to a height of 90,000 li (4,500km).” However, the sky was no longer the limit for Jing Haipeng. The nation’s manned space program ignited his space travel dream, and he made it into space for the first time in 2008.

And after his accomplishments on board Shenzhou-7 and Shenzhou-9, he nursed an aspiration to travel among the stars for a third time.

“Life is composed of one dream after another. If a person has no dream, the soul will be weightless,” Jing said in an interview with the PLA Daily. “For the past year, I hardly traveled outside Beijing Space City [the command center for the Chinese space program], hardly rested during the two-day weekend, hardly went to bed before midnight.”

Jing, sparing no efforts to prepare for the Shenzhou-11 mission, has now realized his latest dream.

After the Shenzhou-11 mission, a third star will be added to Jing’s suit in honor of his achievements. The three stars will be the most special birthday gift for the 50-year-old space hero.

Written by Wang Xuejing