Editor's Note: The delegates to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) are outstanding Party members with remarkable achievements. They are selected from and trusted by more than 96 million members and more than 4.9 million grass-roots organizations of the CPC, embodying the pioneering nature of the CPC and carrying the expectations of the Chinese people. China Military Online is publishing a series of stories to elaborate the outstanding deeds of some delegates.
By An Puzhong and Zhan Kang
During the Shenzhou-13 manned spaceflight mission, Chinese taikonaut Wang Yaping has set many records: China's first female taikonaut to live in the Chinese space station, China's first female taikonaut to perform extravehicular activity, and China's female taikonaut with the longest duration in orbit.
During the Shenzhou-13 mission, Wang Yaping together with the other two members of the crew accomplished thousands of operations and dozens of in-orbit scientific experiments. Before giving a science lecture livestream of dozens of minutes from the space station, she had spent over 200 hours on trial lectures over and over again. Behind a simple space experiment she demonstrated in the lecture was hundreds of times of careful practice; and she had undergone thousands of times of rigorous training before performing an amazing spacewalk.
When talking about the 183-day "business trip in space", Wang Yaping could not help mentioning the spacewalk, which has left the deepest impression on her. "The blue planet where we live is so magnificent when we gaze the Earth afar from the vast universe."
She told reporters, "There are only two states for taikonauts -- in mission and in preparation for mission. No matter how many times they have stepped into space in the past and what kind of honor they have won, they have to get prepared from the scratch."
At present, the construction of China's space station is in full swing. Wentian lab module have been successfully launched and connected to the station via the efforts of the crew of the Shenzhou-14 manned spaceship, while the Mengtian lab module is ready for launch. The in-orbit construction of China's space station is to be fully completed in the near future.
This year, Wang Yaping was elected as a delegate to the 20th CPC National Congress. When talking about her arrangement to follow, Wang Yaping was full of expectation and confidence, saying, "Exploring the vast universe and building China into a space power are the unremitting pursuits of us taikonauts. I am always ready to fulfill the next space mission for our motherland!"
