Cai Xuzhe | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||||
| Born | May 1976 (age 47) | ||||||
| Status | Active | ||||||
| Nationality |  Chinese | ||||||
| Space career | |||||||
| PLAAC Astronaut | |||||||
Previous occupation |  PLAAF fighter pilot | ||||||
| Rank | Senior Colonel, PLASSF | ||||||
Time in space | 182 days, 9 hours and 25 minutes | ||||||
| Selection | Chinese Group 2[1] | ||||||
Total EVAs | 2 | ||||||
Total EVA time | 9 hours, 46 minutes | ||||||
| Missions | Shenzhou 14 | ||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 蔡旭哲 | ||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 蔡旭哲 | ||||||
| |||||||
Cai Xuzhe (Chinese: 蔡旭哲; born May 1976)[2] is a Chinese People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps (PLAAC) taikonaut selected as part of the Shenzhou program.
Cai was born in Shenzhou, Hengshui, Hebei province in 1976.[2] His grandparents come from a scholarly family, teaching in the downtown county and village, respectively, and were veteran party members before the founding of the People's Republic of China.[3] His third uncle was a soldier.[3] Cai graduated from the Baoding Branch of the Changchun Flight Academy of the Air Force.[3] He served as a fighter pilot in the People's Liberation Army Air Force, and was subsequently selected to be an astronaut in 2010.[4] His name was revealed as part of Group 2 in 2011.[5]
He was on board the Tiangong space station, as part of the Shenzhou 14 mission.[6] He completed two spacewalks on 17 September and 17 November both with Chen Dong.
Cai married Wang Yanqing (王颜晴), who is a nurse in a PLA military hospital.[3]