Biography

Chen Dong (simplified Chinese: 陈冬; traditional Chinese: 陳冬; pinyin: Chén Dōng; born 12 December 1978) is a Chinese pilot and astronaut selected as part of the Shenzhou program. He was selected to fly on the Shenzhou 11 mission in October 2016 with astronaut Jing Haipeng. The two underwent more than 3,000 hours of training before the launch of the spacecraft. On 17 October 2016 On 07:30 local time (23:30 GMT on 16 October), Chen lifted off with Shenzhou 11 for a 33-day space mission to the Tiangong-2 space station as his first spaceflight, launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center using a Long March 2F launch rocket. The crew landed successfully after the 33 day mission on 18 November 2016, marking China's longest manned space flight to date. The reentry module of the Shenzhou-11 spacecraft landed in Inner Mongolia around 2.15 p.m(China time) after detaching from the space lab on 17 November.