For most of the space age, the question of which countries could send a person into orbit was answered by a short list: the United States, the Soviet Union and later Russia, and China, with everyone else hitching a ride through cooperation. That list is now quietly expanding through a new doorway.
Speaking at the 77th International Astronautical Congress, which opened on October 5, 2026, in Antalya, Turkey, Yang Liwei — China's first person in space and now a deputy chief designer of the country's human spaceflight program — said the Tiangong ("Heavenly Palace") space station will become a scientific platform open to researchers worldwide and will welcome its first foreign astronauts in the second half of 2026. Two Pakistani reserve astronauts, he said, have performed excellently and are training together with Chinese crews; under the plan, one will fly a short mission as a payload specialist.
Who the Two Candidates Are
The selection has been public since the spring.
China's first-ever selection of foreign astronauts concluded in early April 2026, and the two Pakistani candidates chosen were Muhammad Zeeshan Ali and Khurram Daud. On April 24 — China's Space Day — they entered the Astronaut Center of China to train shoulder to shoulder with Chinese astronauts. After completing their training and passing assessment, one of them will fly as a payload specialist and become the first foreigner to enter the Chinese station. A payload specialist is an astronaut who flies primarily to operate or conduct a specific set of scientific experiments, rather than piloting the spacecraft.
The training is not superficial. According to a May 2026 briefing by the China Manned Space Agency, the pair are following a full program of basic and specialist technical training with a strong emphasis on hands-on operation, to ensure they can actually carry out a mission. They have also been taught Chinese intensively at the start, including the command vocabulary used in flight, since the station and its procedures operate in Mandarin.
Why Pakistan, and Why It Matters
The choice of partner is both diplomatic and strategic.
China and Pakistan describe their relationship as an "all-weather" strategic partnership, one of the closest in either country's foreign relations, and the two already cooperate on satellites and other space technology. Chinese officials and the People's Daily framed the astronaut training as a landmark result of that cooperation and as evidence of Beijing's willingness to share the fruits of its space program rather than fly alone. For Pakistan, a country with a growing space program but no independent human-spaceflight capability, a seat to a station is the kind of opportunity that used to come only through Washington or Moscow.
The wider significance is access. China says it can cooperate on four levels: scientific research, astronaut training, providing flight opportunities, and science education. That is effectively an offer to countries — especially in the developing world — that have had no realistic route to putting one of their own people in orbit.
How Tiangong Compares to the ISS
The natural comparison is with the station that defined international space cooperation for a quarter-century.
The International Space Station (ISS) is a partnership of five space agencies — the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States, Roscosmos in Russia, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). It has been continuously occupied for more than 25 years and, by NASA figures, has hosted visitors from dozens of countries; it is among the most complex cooperative engineering projects ever attempted, deliberately designed so no single partner can run it alone.
Tiangong is a different model in two ways. First, ownership: it is a Chinese-built and Chinese-operated national station, assembled in 2021–2022 from three modules — the Tianhe core module and the Wentian and Mengtian laboratories — and continuously occupied by Chinese crews since June 2022. Partners are invited to use it, but they do not co-own its core systems. Second, openness is offered bilaterally and to a broad set of countries, rather than through a fixed treaty club of wealthy agencies. Where the ISS was a tightly integrated alliance of a few advanced programs, Tiangong is being positioned as an open platform with China as host.
The Timing: One Station Aging, One Open for Business
The Pakistani flight lands at a moment when the geography of orbit is in transition.
The ISS is nearing the end of its life. NASA and its partners plan to operate it through 2030, with Russia confirming in July 2026 that it too will continue joint operations until then, after which the station is expected to be guided into a controlled deorbit over the ocean. Several commercial American successors — stations planned by companies such as Axiom Space, the Starlab team, and Blue Origin — are in development but have slipped their schedules, and Russia and India also plan stations of their own.
Tiangong, by contrast, is already operating, and China plans to expand it, potentially to roughly double its current size. That creates a real possibility that, during any gap between the ISS's retirement and the readiness of commercial replacements, a Chinese station is the most readily available destination for countries seeking to fly. China also says its planned crewed Moon missions and the future International Lunar Research Station will be open to cooperation, extending the same model beyond low Earth orbit.
What the Model Does Not Change
A sober comparison avoids overstating the symmetry.
The ISS remains far larger and more internationally integrated, and over decades it produced an unmatched body of shared science and trained a generation of astronauts from partner nations. A single short Pakistani mission aboard Tiangong is a beginning for China's international program, not yet the equivalent of that accumulated record. Cooperation on Tiangong also takes place on Chinese terms and in the Chinese language, and the list of who flies will reflect Beijing's partnerships and priorities. It is openness, but not the co-governance that defines the ISS.
Geopolitics sets limits on both sides. American law has for years restricted NASA's bilateral cooperation with China, which has kept Chinese astronauts off the ISS and American astronauts off Tiangong; the new "openness" is therefore largely between China and countries other than the United States. None of that makes the Pakistani seat less meaningful — but it is an expansion of access to some nations, not a universal merging of all programs.
What to Keep in Mind
The flight is planned rather than completed; the two candidates are still in training, and only one is expected to fly the first mission. Dates described as "the second half of 2026" come from Chinese space officials and could shift with launch schedules. Figures on ISS visitors vary by how agencies count individuals and countries. Descriptions of Tiangong as a fully "open" platform reflect Chinese policy; in practice access is granted through chosen partnerships. And the ISS's retirement and its commercial successors remain subject to technical and funding decisions, so the exact shape of the transition is not yet fixed.
What to Take Away
When a Pakistani payload specialist boards Tiangong, it will be more than a ceremonial first. It demonstrates a second, Chinese-run route into human spaceflight — a national station offered as an open platform to partner countries, particularly those once locked out of orbit — at the very time the ISS alliance heads toward retirement.
The two models now sit side by side: the ISS, a deeply shared, co-owned club of a few advanced agencies nearing 2030, and Tiangong, a younger, China-hosted platform opening its hatch bilaterally to the world. China is not yet matching the ISS's decades of integrated science. But by deciding who next gets to fly, it is quietly becoming a new gateway to space — and for countries like Pakistan, that is a door that did not exist before.