Ye Guangfu

Ye Guangfu (born September 1980) is a Chinese fighter pilot and People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps (PLAAC) taikonaut selected as part of the Shenzhou program.

Biography
Ye was born in a rural village Shuangliu County, Sichuan to an ordinary family of farmers in September 1980. He has an elder sister. His father died when Ye was 8, and he helped with farm work from childhood. Ye's elementary education was at Wan'an Middle School and secondary education at Taiping High School.

Career
As a People's Liberation Army Air Force pilot, Ye spent four years as an instructor and four years as a jet fighter pilot and amassed a total of 1,100 hours of flight time. He was selected to join the second batch of Chinese astronauts in 2010 and qualified in 2014.

Ye made his first public appearance after participating in the ESA CAVES mission of 2016 organised by the ESA, making him the first Chinese participant of such an event.

He was part of the backup crew for Shenzhou 12, and flew on Shenzhou 13 to the Tiangong space station. On 26 November 2021, Ye and Shenzhou 13 commander Zhai Zhigang carried out the second EVA of the mission, marking Ye's first spacewalk and Zhai's third.

Ye is the commander of the Shenzhou 18 mission to Tiangong, which launched on 25 April 2024. If he completes the 180-day mission as planned, he will become the first Chinese taikonaut to spend over one year in space. On 28 May 2024, Ye Guangfu along with his Shenzhou 18 crew mate Li Guangsu carried out China's longest spacewalk yet, spending about 8.5 hours on tasks including the installation of the space station's space debris protection device.

Personal life
Ye is married and has a son and a daughter. His father-in-law is a pilot.

Apart from his native language Chinese, he is also fluent in English and Russian.