As the government works to finish its orbiting space station, China's human spaceflight agency has begun the search for a new class of astronauts. On Sunday (October 2), the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) announced that it will pick 12 to 14 candidates to join its pool of astronauts for future spaceflight missions.
CMSA has said that it will be looking for seven to eight pilots as well as five or six spaceflight engineers. Up to two members of the latter group will be payload experts.
The pilots will be chosen from among the ranks of the People's Liberation Army. Civilians from China's space-related industries are eligible to apply to be spaceflight engineers. For the first time, applicants from Hong Kong and Macao are eligible for the new astronaut selection phase. Those chosen will be the fourth generation of Chinese astronauts. Their hiring follows the selection of 18 astronauts in 2020, who have been training and may soon be ready for mission selection. The new choice comes as China nears the end of its Tiangong space station construction. China will deploy the first two Tiangong modules in April 2021 and July 2022. The third and final module for the T-shaped orbiting outpost will be launched at the end of October.