China’s first female astronaut to visit Namibia

WINDHOEK – China’s first ever female astronaut Liu Yan will visit Namibia from August 19 to August 23, together with another Chinese astronaut who spent 33 days in space in 2016, Chen Dong
The visit aims to respond to the invitation of President Geingob to enhance communication and cooperation on astronautics between China and Namibia. 

During his state visit to China last year, Geingob visited China Space Center, interacted with three Chinese astronauts and invited Chinese astronauts to visit Namibia at some convenient time. 
During the visit, the delegation will pay a courtesy call to President Geingob, meet local middle school learners at Space TT&C Station, and communicate with students face to face at Namibia University of Science and Technology. 

Chinese astronauts are national heroes and their visit to a foreign country always receives a warm welcome.
Their trip to Namibia will be a landmark event of friendly exchange between the two countries. 
In 2010, the first Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei visited Namibia. This will be the second visit of Chinese astronauts to Namibia, highlighting the special relationship of the two countries and the great importance China attaches to the cooperation. 

China and Namibia keep good cooperation in the fields of aerospace on the basis of equality and mutual benefits, and China’s aerospace development cannot be separated from the support of Namibia. 
On June 16, 2012, Liu, as one of the crew of Shenzhou-9 (the fourth crewed spacecraft flight of China’s Shenzhou program) went to the Chinese space station Tiangong-1, becoming the first female Chinese astronaut going into space.

 On October 17, 2016, Chen lifted off with Shenzhou-11 for a 33-day space mission to the Tiangong-2 space station as his first spaceflight. The crew landed successfully on November 18, 2016, marking China’s longest manned space flight to date.