Wang Yaping becomes the first Chinese woman astronaut to walk in space

Wang Yaping is a member of China’s eighth crewed spaceflight and the program’s thirteenth flight, Shenzhou 13, which will spend six months aboard China’s Tiangong space station (Heavenly Palace).

Wang Yaping, along with male colleagues Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu, is the first Chinese woman to perform a spacewalk and the first female taikonaut to work aboard China’s Tiangong space station.

Meet Wang Yaping

Wang, a Shandong native, joined the People’s Liberation Army Air Force in August 1997 and rose through the ranks to become a deputy commanding officer before joining the PLA Astronaut Division’s second batch of astronauts in May 2010. Wang was in high school in 1997 when her classmates encouraged her to participate in the pilot recruitment program because she was athletic.

Wang Yaping is the first Chinese woman to perform a spacewalk and the first female taikonaut to work aboard China’s Tiangong space station.

Wang, in fact, passed all tests and physical examinations, becoming a member of China’s seventh batch of female pilots, owing to her strong build and ability to remain calm under pressure. Wang eventually learned to fly four different aircraft types before graduating after four years of systemic education and intensive training.

As a military pilot, she accumulated 1,567 hours of flight time and participated in major missions such as the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake relief effort and the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. In May 2010, Wang was part of China’s first shipment of female astronauts. She was unable to reach the top level during her first year, which required her to endure eight times the force of gravity in a spinning centrifuge.

Wang improved her performance by doing core-strengthening exercises every day to strengthen her back and abdominal muscles, and she eventually reached the top level at the end of 2011. Wang’s space dream came true in 2013 when she participated in the Shenzhou-10 mission, a crewed spaceflight of China’s Shenzhou program that launched on June 11, 2013; it was China’s fifth crewed space mission.

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