Happy birthday, Chinese astronaut Jing Haipeng!

Jing Haipeng, born October 24, 1966 in China, is the first Chinese astronaut to go into space three times.  

His first flight was aboard Shenzhou 7 as descent module monitor astronaut in September 2008.  The mission lasted three days.

His second mission was aboard Shenzhou 9 as commander in June 2012.  He became the first Chinese astronaut to fly into space more than once.

His third mission was aboard Shenzhou 11 to the Tiangong 2 space station October-November 2016.  Jing celebrated his fiftieth birthday while in orbit.

Shenzhou-11, China's fifth manned space mission, launched 2016

Shenzhou-11, the fifth space mission from the China National Space Administration, took off October 16, 2016 (UTC) with Commander (and veteran astronaut) Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong, who was on  his first spaceflight.

Two days after takeoff, Shenzhou-11 docked with Tiangong-2, the Chinese space laboratory, which was launched just a month prior.  For 30 days, the astronauts conducted scientific and technical experiments.  They returned safely to Earth November 18.

Since then, the unmanned cargo ship, Tianzhou-1 has successfully docked with Tiangong-2 three times, demonstrating docking and refueling.