Pakistani astronaut to join Shenzhou-24 mission to China space station

HONG KONG/BEIJING- A Pakistani astronaut will join China's space station in this year's Shenzhou-24 mission, as part of bilateral cooperation under Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese state media reported on Saturday.

The first foreign visitor to the space station will participate as a payload specialist in the mission, broadcaster CCTV reported, citing the China Manned Space Agency.

China has not identified the astronaut, but pilots Zeeshan Ali and Khurram Daud have spent months training at the China Astronaut Research and Training Center in Beijing for a mission, a Pakistani space agency official told Reuters in September.

Beijing has not announced the date of the mission.

CCTV said that after completing a short-term in-orbit flight, the astronaut will return to Earth aboard the Shenzhou-23 spacecraft.

This marks the first joint spaceflight featuring both Chinese and foreign astronauts in the history of China's manned space program, under Beijing's space diplomacy.

(Reporting by Selena Li in Hong Kong and Shi Bu in Beijing; Editing by William Mallard)