Major general Fei Junlong (; born 5 May 1965) is a Chinese military pilot and taikonaut. He was the commander of

Shenzhou 6 Shenzhou 6 () was the second human spaceflight of the Chinese space program, launched on October 12, 2005, on a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The Shenzhou spacecraft carried a crew of Fèi Jùnlóng (费俊龙) ...

, the second crewed spaceflight of China's space program, and was selected as commander for the Shenzhou 15 mission to the

Tiangong space station Tiangong (), officially the ''Tiangong'' space station (), is a permanently crewed space station constructed by China and operated by China Manned Space Agency. Tiangong is a modular design, with modules docked together while in low Earth o ...

Early life

He was born in a rural village in

Kunshan Kunshan is a county-level city in southeastern Jiangsu Province, Jiangsu province with Shanghai bordering its eastern border and Suzhou on its western boundary. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Suzhou. Name Th ...

Jiangsu Jiangsu is a coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province in East China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its capital in Nanjing. Jiangsu is the List of Chinese administra ...

province of China to a family of farmers and was recruited from high school by the

People's Liberation Army Air Force The People's Liberation Army Air Force, also referred to as the Chinese Air Force () or the People's Air Force (), is the primary aerial warfare service of the People's Liberation Army. The PLAAF controls most of the PLA's air assets, includi ...

(PLAAF) in 1982 at the age of 17. He graduated with excellent marks from the PLAAF's No. 9 Aviation School, the Changchun No.1 Flight College of the PLA Air Force and Flight Training School of the Air Force. In the PLAAF, he was a pilot, flight trainer and flight technology inspector.

Spaceflight career

Fei was selected for the CNSA astronaut program in 1998. He was in the final five selected for China's first crewed space flight,

Shenzhou 5 Shenzhou 5 (, see ) was the first human spaceflight mission of the Chinese space program, launched on 15 October 2003. The Shenzhou (spacecraft), Shenzhou spacecraft was launched on a Long March 2F launch vehicle. There had been four previous fl ...

. He was the commander on the

flight that launched October 12, 2005, with

Nie Haisheng Nie Haisheng (born 13 October 1964) is a major general of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) in active service as an taikonaut and the third commander (unit chief) of the People's Liberation Army Astronaut Co ...

serving as flight engineer. They landed on October 17, 2005. Fei is also a member of Shenzhou 15's 3-person crew on a 6-months mission to

. The mission launched on 29 November 2022, arriving at the station about seven hours later.

Personal life

He married Wang Jie () in 1991 and has one son. His father-in-law was a veteran of the

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

and later became an aerospace researcher, and his mother-in-law was a teacher. His son Fei Di () is also a member of the Shenzhou spacecraft development team. During his personal time he dabbles in fine arts.

Awards and honors

* Command Pilot of PLAAF, 1982 * Merit Citation Class II, 1996 * Chinese May 4 Medal for Youth Having Outstanding Contributions, 2005 * Aerospace Achievement Medal, 2005 * The honorary title of "Space Hero", 2005 * Top 10 Inspirational Models of China, 2006 * Asteroid 9512 Feijunlong, 2007 * Honorary Professor of Nanjing Audit University, 2011 * Honorary Member of Chinese Society of Astronautics, 2012 The

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

9512 Feijunlong was named after him.

References

External links

Fèi Jùnlóng
at the

Encyclopedia Astronautica The ''Encyclopedia Astronautica'' is a reference web site on Space exploration, space travel. The encyclopedia includes 79,433 articles with 13,741 illustrations, a comprehensive catalog of missiles, spacecraft, space technology, astronauts, an ...