December 7th, 2011 by Tony Quine, Igor Lissov and Rui C. Barbosa
|The names of the military pilots selected in 2010 to form China’s second group of taikonauts - which have been a closely guarded secret for the last 18 months - appear to have been released to the space community, due to a possible philatelic blunder.
Chinese Taikonauts:
A space collectibles website is offering a postal cover for sale – apparently signed by the five men and two women who make up the group. The cover is dated 10th May 2010 which is the date which the Chinese have previously mentioned as the official date that the group were appointed to the Chinese Astronaut Team.
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The two women taikonauts are named as Liu Yang and Wang Yaping. Wang had previously been identified, and exclusively revealed as a taikonaut by these authors (Tony Quine, Igor Lissov) in November 2010, when sources close to the Chinese programme had, when pressed, confirmed her inclusion in the group.
Liu Yang is also known to be a member of the same generation of Peoples Liberation Army Air Force female transport pilots as Wang, and has previously featured in the Chinese media for her aviation exploits. As such, her inclusion in the group is logical and there need be little doubt about the accuracy of her name appearing on the offending cover. Liu is believed to hold the military of Major, whilst Wang is a Captain.
Recent reports from China during the Tiangong 1 and Shenzhou 8 missions had mentioned that two women, together with seven men from the original 1998 taikonaut selection, formed the nine person training group for the anticipated Shenzhou 9 and 10 flights, planned to visit Tiangong 1 in 2012.
We can now be certain that the two women are Wang and Liu, and that, in all probability, one of them will become the first Chinese woman is space, within the next year.
The names of the five men were recorded in the note accompanying the postal cover as Zhang Hu, Chen Dong, Cai Xuzhe, Tang Hongbo and Yi Guangfu. It is possible, even likely, that these names have been read from the handwritten signatures on the envelope, although Chinese space forum sources have helped to verify these names as far as possible, from interpretation of the signatures.
These five men are not involved in the Shenzhou 9 and 10 missions, suggesting that they will have to wait until at least the Tiangong 2 series of missions scheduled no earlier than 2013 to reach orbit.
The new astronauts will certainly participate on the manned missions for TianGong-2 and TianGong-3, and we should expect that China will select a new taikonau class within two years.
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