China's Manned Space Agency has chosen a Pakistani astronaut to serve as a payload specialist on the Shenzhou-24 mission, according to Al Jazeera. The selection makes the unnamed crew member the first person from outside China to travel to the country's orbital station.
Chinese state media announced the pick on Saturday. Al Jazeera reports that Beijing has not disclosed the astronaut's identity or a launch date, though the flight is expected to lift off before the end of the year.
Why it matters
The assignment is the most visible result so far of a space partnership between two countries that have long been close strategic and diplomatic allies. For China, it marks the first time its station has hosted a foreign crew member, a step toward the kind of international participation that has defined the International Space Station. For Pakistan, it puts a national in orbit for the first time and signals that its space ambitions now extend beyond satellites and ground-based programmes.
The mission also sits inside a broader Chinese push. Al Jazeera notes that Beijing has poured money into its space programme in recent years, closing ground on the United States, and aims to put astronauts on the lunar surface by 2030.
Training in Beijing and a February agreement
The groundwork for the flight was laid in February, when the two governments signed an arrangement creating a Chinese government-led programme to prepare Pakistani astronauts, according to Al Jazeera. Two Pakistani pilots, Zeeshan Ali and Khurram Daud, spent months at the China Astronaut Research and Training Center in Beijing.
Their preparation combined hands-on operational drills with intensive instruction in Chinese, Al Jazeera reports, so that the candidates could work alongside Chinese crew members and ground teams.
China is Pakistan's largest trading partner and a major foreign investor, and Al Jazeera describes the astronaut programme as part of bilateral cooperation under Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative. The same reporting says the Shenzhou-24 crew will conduct a short-term stay in orbit before coming home aboard the Shenzhou-23 spacecraft, a detail carried by China Central Television.
A rover named Jinnah-1
The cooperation extends past the crewed flight. According to Al Jazeera, the China National Space Administration will also carry Jinnah-1, Pakistan's first lunar rover, to the Moon. The 35kg (77lb) vehicle carries specialised scientific instruments and is designed to study plasma behaviour, radiation and the makeup of lunar soil.
The rover work and the astronaut programme together give Pakistan a foothold in two areas — human spaceflight and lunar surface science — that few countries have attempted.
A wider lunar race
The Shenzhou-24 flight comes as several spacefaring nations sharpen their plans for the Moon. Al Jazeera reports that the United States, Russia and China are all competing to place nuclear reactors on the lunar surface. NASA has said it intends to build one by the end of 2030, while Russia, working with China, is targeting 2036.
Those reactors would generate power for mining frozen water believed to lie deep in lunar craters. Scientists think that ice could eventually supply drinking water, breathable air and rocket propellant for future bases, as well as electricity for the outposts themselves.
For now, the immediate focus is low Earth orbit. Watch for China's space agency to name the Pakistani crew member and confirm a launch window, and for further word on when Jinnah-1 is scheduled to leave for the Moon.
