Yang Liwei

Yang Liwei is a Chinese People Liberation Army Air Force pilot who became the first person sent into space by China, flying the Shenzhou 5 mission in October 2003 and completing 14 orbits of the Earth over roughly 21 hours. His flight made China only the third country, after the Soviet Union and the United States, to independently launch a human into orbit using its own launch vehicle and spacecraft. Yang later took on senior leadership roles within the Chinese human spaceflight program.