Shenzhou 5

Yang Liwei was a 38-year-old PLA lieutenant colonel and former fighter pilot when he became the sole occupant of Shenzhou 5.

On 15 October 2003, at 9:00 Beijing time, the Long March 2F carrying him lifted from Jiuquan. The spacecraft entered an orbit of 332 by 336 kilometres and completed fourteen circuits of the Earth in 21 hours and 22 minutes before the descent capsule landed in Inner Mongolia on the 16th.

Four uncrewed Shenzhou test missions had preceded Yang's flight. China became the third country — after the Soviet Union and the United States — to achieve independent crewed spaceflight, arriving at that milestone 42 years after Gagarin's first orbit.

Tiangong was still eight years away.