Cai Xuzhe | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Born | May 1976 (age 49) | ||||||
| Status | Active | ||||||
| Space career | |||||||
| PLAAC astronaut | |||||||
Previous occupation |  People's Liberation Army Air Force pilot | ||||||
| Rank | Senior Colonel,People's Liberation Army Ground Force | ||||||
Time in space | 364 days, 18 hours and 7 minutes | ||||||
| Selection | Chinese Group 2 (2010)[1] | ||||||
TotalEVAs | 5 | ||||||
Total EVA time | 34 hours, 14 minutes | ||||||
| Missions | Shenzhou 14 Shenzhou 19 | ||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 蔡旭哲 | ||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 蔡旭哲 | ||||||
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Cai Xuzhe (Chinese:蔡旭哲; born May 1976)[2] is a ChinesePeople's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps (PLAAC)taikonaut selected as part of theShenzhou program.
Cai was born inShenzhou,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 theBaoding Branch of the Changchun Flight Academy of the Air Force.[3] He served as afighter pilot in thePeople'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 theTiangong space station as part of theShenzhou 14 mission in 2022, spending 182 days in space.[6] He completed two spacewalks on 17 September and 17 November both withChen Dong.
He returned to Tiangong on 29 October 2024 as the commander of theShenzhou 19 mission.[7] Then, on 17 December 2024, during this mission's first EVA, he broke the record withSong Lingdong forthe 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] During this mission he completed three spacewalks, for a total of 5 over his career.[9] After spending 6 months in space, he returned to Earth on 30 April 2025.[10]
Cai married Wang Yanqing (王颜晴), who is a nurse in a PLA military hospital.[3]
People currently inlow Earth orbit | |||||
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| International Space Station (Expedition 73) |
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| Tiangong (Expedition 9) |
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