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Cai Xuzhe
Chinese taikonaut (born 1976) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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.
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Biography
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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 in 2022, spending 182 days in space.[6] He completed two spacewalks on 17 September and 17 November both with Chen Dong.
He returned to Tiangong on 29 October 2024 as the commander of the Shenzhou 19 mission.[7] Then, on 17 December 2024, during this mission's first EVA, he broke the record with Song Lingdong for the longest spacewalk in human history, of 9 hours and 6 minutes, with the assistance of the space station's robotic arms and ground-based scientific personnel, completed tasks such as the installation of space debris protection devices, inspection, and maintenance of external equipment and facilities.[8] After spending 6 months in space, he returned to Earth on 30 April 2025.[9]
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Personal life
Cai married Wang Yanqing (王颜晴), who is a nurse in a PLA military hospital.[3]
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