China has given Pakistan’s first astronaut a spacecraft, a destination and a return ticket, but not a launch date and not a name. The China Manned Space Agency announced on Saturday, 7 November, that a Pakistani astronaut will fly to the Tiangong space station aboard Shenzhou-24 as a payload specialist, stay for a short period in orbit, and return to Earth aboard Shenzhou-23. The mission will make the Pakistani flyer the first foreign visitor to Tiangong and the first foreign astronaut on a joint crewed flight in China’s manned space programme.
A ticket with two spacecraft
The detail that matters most in the announcement is the one that looks like a misprint. The Pakistani astronaut goes up on Shenzhou-24 and comes home on Shenzhou-23, a different spacecraft. That is not a mistake. Shenzhou-23 is already in orbit: it carried its three-person crew to Tiangong in May 2026, a crew that included Hong Kong’s first astronaut, Lai Ka-ying. The Pakistani visitor will ride up on the fresh spacecraft and return on the older one, the way station crews rotate. The agency released the Shenzhou-24 mission emblem on the same day, marked 2026 and SZ-24. What the announcement does not settle is the schedule. It names the spacecraft, the role and the return vehicle, but gives no departure day.
The date Pakistan named, and the date China has not
Pakistan’s planning minister, Ahsan Iqbal, named 25 November as the launch date three weeks ago. Speaking in Narowal on 18 October, he said Pakistan’s first astronaut would fly from a Chinese centre on 25 November, and he restated a target of a lunar landing by 2035. That date is now 18 days away, and China has not confirmed it. The 25 November date therefore stands as the minister’s announcement, not as a confirmed schedule, and it can still move. Reuters reported in September that the stay in orbit was expected to last about a week. The Chinese announcement describes it only as a short-term flight, so even the length remains approximate. Until Beijing publishes a launch time, the countdown is Pakistan’s, not China’s.
Two pilots, one seat, no name yet
The other name China has not given is the flyer’s. Two Pakistani pilots, Muhammad Zeeshan Ali and Khurram Daud, were selected in April 2026 after a three-stage selection process, and both have trained at the China Astronaut Research and Training Center in Beijing. One will fly and the other will serve as backup, but the announcement does not say which. Reuters reported in September that the final selection decision was expected in mid-to-late October. That window has passed, so the identity of Pakistan’s first person in space is still an open question with 18 days to go, if the minister’s date holds. The flyer will serve as a payload specialist, running Pakistan’s own science experiments in orbit rather than flying the spacecraft.
Twenty-one months from agreement to orbit
The flight is the end of a 21-month runway. China and Pakistan signed the astronaut cooperation agreement in February 2025, officially launching selection from Pakistan. Two reserve astronauts were chosen in April 2026 and entered training alongside Chinese astronauts. PakMirror reported in October that the mission was nearing its final shape, with both candidates in training in Beijing. On 18 October, the planning minister named 25 November. On 7 November, China named Shenzhou-24 and Shenzhou-23. Reuters reported the flight as part of bilateral cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative. It is the most visible product yet of a partnership in which China is already Pakistan’s largest bilateral creditor.
Sixty-four years after Rehbar-1
The flight closes a 64-year arc. On 7 June 1962, SUPARCO launched Rehbar-I, a two-stage sounding rocket, from Sonmiani, and it rose about 130 kilometres carrying a sodium payload. SUPARCO itself had been founded a year earlier, in 1961. From that first rocket to a crewed station visit is a long road, and it is worth stating plainly what the flight does and does not mean. Pakistan has no crewed spacecraft and no launch vehicle of its own, so the mission depends entirely on Chinese spacecraft, launch facilities, training and operations. The achievement is real, a Pakistani will work in orbit, but the capability is borrowed.
What to watch next
Three things will settle the story. First, whether China confirms 25 November or the date moves. Second, which pilot is named, and whether the announcement comes days or hours before launch. Third, what experiments the payload specialist runs, and what results come back to Pakistan. The spacecraft is named and the return is planned. The rest is still to be announced. More technology news from Pakistan is on PakMirror’s technology pages.
