Hong Kong’s first astronaut Lai Ka-ying picked for space station mission

The former police officer will become China’s fourth woman in space, taking part in the Shenzhou-23 mission as a payload specialist

Hong Kong will send its first astronaut to the Tiangong space station, the China Manned Space Agency announced on Saturday.

Lai Ka-ying, a police chief inspector and tech expert with a doctorate in computer science, will join the Shenzhou-23 mission as a payload specialist. She will become the fourth female astronaut to enter the Chinese space station.

The Shenzhou-23 crewed spacecraft is targeting a launch at 23:08 tomorrow.

According to the agency, she will work alongside astronauts Zhu Yangzhu and Zhang Zhiyuan. Zhu, the mission commander, previously served on Shenzhou-16, while Lai and Zhang are both space-flight first-timers.

Lai, China’s first female payload expert, was selected for training in 2024 as part of China’s fourth batch of astronauts, which comprised 10 candidates: eight pilots and two payload specialists. The latter two were chosen from the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.

“Lai joined the team in August 2024 … and completed 1,700 training hours, passing the flight qualification assessment with flying colours,” said Zhang Jingbo, spokesman of the agency, adding that Lai has met all requirements and is in good shape.

“We are glad to see that Hong Kong research capabilities have been actively plugged in the national space efforts in recent years. Universities and research institutes in Hong Kong have been working closely with national research teams”, Zhang said.