Pakistan will fly its first astronaut on China’s Shenzhou-24

A Pakistani astronaut will fly as a payload specialist on China’s Shenzhou-24 mission to the Tiangong space station, becoming the first foreign national to board the outpost, and the China Manned Space Agency expects the flight before the end of 2026.

The China Manned Space Agency announced in April that it had chosen Muhammad Zeeshan Ali and Khurram Daud to start astronaut training in China, though only one candidate will make the journey and Beijing has not named the final choice or set a launch date. Their preparation included hands-on operational capabilities and intensive Chinese language instruction at the Beijing-based China Astronaut Research and Training Center, and Xinhua reported that both candidates started training alongside Chinese counterparts. As a payload specialist, the visitor will focus on scientific experiments and assigned research rather than flying the spacecraft, which Chinese astronauts will control.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met the astronauts in April and described the mission as a “matter of pride for the entire nation.” The flight is part of a February 2025 agreement between China and Pakistan that created a Chinese government training program for Pakistani astronauts, with one candidate joining a mission to Tiangong. Suparco and CMSA signed the agreement under which two candidates would train in China. CMSA announced the selection in April but did not disclose the flying astronaut’s name.

Federal Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal said in October that the mission would occur on November 25, but the China Manned Space Agency did not specify a departure date and has not announced a launch date or final choice. The agency expects the flight before the end of 2026. The astronaut will complete a short orbital flight and return to Earth aboard Shenzhou-23, which docked with Tiangong in May. China has not officially explained the arrangement of returning aboard a different vehicle.

China has not disclosed the specific experiments for the visitor, and one report estimates a one-week stay, though CMSA and Xinhua have not confirmed the length. Even a short station visit demands extensive preparation because spacecraft limit passengers, weight and supplies, and the return capsule needs a fitted seat, spacesuit links and sample room. Life-support, communications, medical monitoring and emergency systems must work for the visitor, and modifications require careful safety checks. Astronauts must rehearse emergency procedures repeatedly because launch, docking and re-entry carry risks, though China has not released full preparation details.

Pakistan’s space relationship with China spans more than 30 years and began in 1990, when Badr-1, Pakistan’s first experimental satellite, launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on a Chinese rocket. A Chinese Long March-6 rocket placed Pakistan’s PRSC-EO3 remote-sensing satellite into orbit in April 2026. The cooperation has developed over more than three decades. China is Pakistan’s largest trading partner and a major foreign investor within a decades-long all-weather friendship.

China has also worked with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs to let countries run experiments on its space station, and the first round covered nine projects, 23 institutions and 17 UN Member States. This provides an alternative route for countries with less-developed space programs to take part without independently establishing all launch and orbital infrastructure.

Beijing built its station after exclusion from the International Space Station program, so hosting a Pakistani astronaut lets China share access while giving Islamabad recognition without a crewed spacecraft of its own. Zhang Chaozhe of Sichuan University’s Pakistan Study Center called human spaceflight a highly demanding form of scientific cooperation.

The mission would make Pakistan the first country to send a visitor to Tiangong. The China Manned Space Agency has said this would be the first joint flight with a foreign astronaut in China’s crewed spaceflight history, and the sources describe it as a new stage in more than three decades of cooperation between Beijing and Islamabad.

India is pursuing Gaganyaan and an eventual Indian space station to launch astronauts independently, unlike Pakistan’s plan to fly aboard a Chinese spacecraft. China targets a crewed Moon landing by 2030 and views the United States as its main space rival, while NASA aims for a 2028 lunar landing.