Happy birthday, Chinese astronaut Wang Yaping!

Wang Yaping, born January 1980 in Shandong, China, is the second Chinese woman in space, and the first Chinese woman to perform a spacewalk.  She set a record for the longest stay in space by a female Chinese astronaut in April 2022 with a total of 197 days.

Her first trip into space was aboard Shenzhou 10 as Laboratory Assistant to Tiangong 1 in June 2013.  The crew returned to Earth 14 days and 14.5 hours later.

Her second mission was aboard Shenzhou 13 as Operator to the Tianhe core module, the first part of the Tiangong space station in October 2021. During the mission, she conducted an EVA in November 2021 with fellow astronaut Zhai Zhigang to install the robotic arm suspension and perform some routine tests. The EVA lasted 6 hours, 25 minutes. The crew returned to Earth in April 2022.

Shenzhou 13 launched 2021

Shenzhou crew (L-R): Ye Guangfu, Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping

Shenzhou 13 mission patch

Shenzhou 13, the eighth manned Chinese spaceflight, was launched October 15, 2021 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.  Its crew consisted of Commander Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping, and Ye Guangfu. Wang became the first Chinese woman to conduct a spacewalk on November 7, when she and Zhigang performed extravehicular activities.

Zhigang and Guangfu performed a second EVA on December 26.  The crew returned to Earth on April 16, 2022 after more than 182 days in space.

Tiangong 1, Chinese Space Station, to crash to Earth by April 2018

Tiangong 1, the Chinese Space Station launched in 2011, is scheduled to come tumbling back to Earth sometime before April 2018.  The Chinese have known about this since last year, when they announced they had lost the telemetry signal from the station.

After a series of successful internal tests in March 2012, Shenzhou 9 blasted off June 16 with three astronauts, Commander Jing Haipeng, Liu Wang, and Liu Yang (first Chinese woman in space) and docked with the space station.  They returned June 29.

The following June, Shenzhou 10 docked with the space station with another crew of three: Commander Nie Haisheng, Zhang Xiaoguang and Wang Yaping (second Chinese woman in space).  It was the second and final trip to Tiangong 1.   After they left, the space station was put into 'sleep mode'.

Tiangong 1 has gone past its useful life and the Chinese had predicted they would be able to control its re-entry, but with the telemetry link lost, it will re-enter Earth's atmosphere uncontrolled.  Nobody knows where it will land.  Most of Earth's surface is uninhabited, but there is exists the remote possibility that some of the station's parts may reach ground and hit an inhabited area.

Just giving y'all a heads-up!