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KARACHI: Two Pakistani pilots are memorising Mandarin, spinning in centrifuge drills and learning to eat, sleep and repair equipment while weightless as a decision \u200bnears on which one will become the first foreign astronaut aboard China\u2019s Tiangong space station.<\/p>\n
The voyage into space would be a first for the South Asian nation. It is part of broader cooperation with Beijing that straddles the Belt and Road Initiative and has produced Chinese-launched Pakistani satellites, a joint satellite-navigation system and a Pakistani-built rover due to fly on China\u2019s Chang\u2019e 8 lunar mission around 2028.<\/p>\n
Pilots Zeeshan Ali and Khurram Daud have spent months training at the China Astronaut Research and Training Center in Beijing for a mission that was conceived by the two countries in 2019, said Amer Gilani, who oversees human spaceflight cooperation at Pakistan\u2019s space agency, SUPARCO.<\/p>\n
China has not said which of the two will fly or when, but Gilani said a final astronaut selection decision is expected in mid-to-late October.<\/p>\n
Whoever is chosen will not \u200creturn to Pakistan before \u200claunch, setting off into space directly from training in China and returning home after a \u200brecovery \u200cperiod \u2060following the \u200breturn \u2060to Earth, Gilani told Reuters in an interview.<\/p>\n
Training includes intensive Chinese-language instruction, learning spacecraft systems, and adapting to both the microgravity of orbit and the g-forces of liftoff, he added.<\/p>\n
The two men beat out roughly 20 finalists culled from an initial Pakistani pool of pilots and scientists, screened for medical fitness, psychological resilience and, according to SUPARCO\u2019s director of artificial intelligence Uzair Ansari, a tolerance for g-forces that few scientists possess.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot easily find scientists who are familiar with traveling and facing high-level g-forces,\u201d he said, explaining this is why the two men with backgrounds in high-speed flying were chosen.<\/p>\n
The details shared by Gilani and Ansari are the first insight provided by SUPARCO to foreign media since the pilots were selected and deployed to China.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s \u2060space agency did not respond to a request for comment about the selection process.<\/p>\n
MODEST PAYLOAD<\/strong><\/p>\n Once in \u200cspace, the chosen pilot will carry the title of \u201cpayload specialist,\u201d which is astronaut-speak \u200cfor someone whose job in orbit is running Pakistan\u2019s science experiments rather than flying the \u200bship, Ansari said.<\/p>\n Of more than 300 proposals SUPARCO fielded from \u200cuniversities in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad after a year-long campaign, Gilani said Chinese institutes picked four for this flight: biotechnology experiments that will \u200chelp combat food insecurity and climate change.<\/p>\n Every experiment is built and pre-tested in SUPARCO\u2019s own labs before Chinese engineers sign off \u2014 a rare case, Ansari said, where Pakistani technology gets validated on an international platform.<\/p>\n The scientific payload is modest next to a station that has already hosted more than 180 experiments and produced over 500 research papers and 150 patents, Ansari added.<\/p>\n Tiangong\u2019s three modules \u2014 Tianhe, Wentian and Mengtian \u2014 weigh about 77 metric tons combined and house roughly 14 experiment \u200cracks spanning life sciences, materials, fluid physics, combustion and radiation exposure, Gilani said, including some mounted outside the station and exposed directly to space for materials and biotechnology payloads.<\/p>\n RELIANCE ON BEIJING<\/strong><\/p>\n The astronaut \u2060will fly aboard a Chinese-built spacecraft, launched \u2060from a Chinese site, trained by Chinese instructors and communicating in Mandarin in orbit.<\/p>\n Pakistan has no independent launch vehicle or crewed spacecraft of its own, and the stay itself will be about a week, a fraction of the roughly six-month rotations of career Chinese crew members.<\/p>\n The Pakistani astronaut is due to return with two members of a Chinese crew that arrived at the space station in May because the third member is expected to stay for a year to enable the study of long-duration human physiology in space.<\/p>\n Since Yuri Gagarin\u2019s 1961 first flight, citizens of about 50 countries have flown in space, but only three nations \u2014 Russia, the US, and China \u2014 have launched their own crewed spacecraft. China\u2019s invitation to Pakistan is the first time it will transport a foreign astronaut.<\/p>\n Asked whether Islamabad had secured any promise to send an astronaut to the moon under the same partnership, Gilani said \u201cthere is no official commitment or discussion on this matter,\u201d adding that what comes next will depend on how \u201cour maiden mission\u201d turns out.<\/p>\n The Pakistani-built lunar rover that is due to fly on China\u2019s Chang\u2019e 8 \u200blunar mission around 2028 is a separate strand of that cooperation: \u200bit will use AI-based stereo imaging to detect obstacles, judge depth and plan its own path across the lunar surface, since Earth-based controllers cannot guide it in real time, Ansari said.<\/p>\n Still, Ansari was clear the mission is a \u201conce-in-a-lifetime opportunity\u201d for Pakistani scientists.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n