Li Qinglong (; born August 1962) is a Chinese

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...

selected as part of the

Shenzhou program Shenzhou may refer to: * Shenzhou, or "Divine Land", one of the Chinese names of China * Shenzhou program, a crewed spaceflight initiative by the People's Republic of China * Shenzhou (spacecraft), spacecraft from China which first carried a Chi ...

Biography

Li Qinglong was born in Dingyuan,

Anhui Anhui is an inland Provinces of China, province located in East China. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze and Huai rivers, bordering Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the east, Jiang ...

province, China. In 1987 he graduated from 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) Missile College and later the PLAAF Flight College. A fighter pilot in the PLAAF, he had accumulated 1230 flight-hours. In November 1996, Li Qinglong and Wu Jie started training at the Russian Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center. Along with the 12 candidates selected in 1998, they formed Group 1 of the

People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps The People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps (PLAAC; ), also known as the Chinese Astronaut Corps (), is a Beijing-based deputy-corps grade People's Liberation Army Aerospace Force (PLAASF) and is responsible for the selection and training of ...

. In January 2003 it was reported by a

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

that Chen Long would make the first manned Shenzhou flight. Then in March 2003, it was reported that Li Qinglong would make the first manned flight. It was thought that "Chen Long" was a misspelling of "Qinglong", a fact confirmed by the newspaper a couple of days before the launch of

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 ...

, which was flown by

Yang Liwei Yang Liwei (; born 21 June 1965) is a Chinese major general, former military pilot, and former taikonaut of the People's Liberation Army. In October 2003, Yang became the first person sent into space by the Chinese space program. This missi ...

. Li Qinglong retired from the Astronaut Corps in 2014.

References

1962 births Living people People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps Shenzhou program astronauts People's Liberation Army Air Force personnel {{astronaut-stub