Li Jiaying

Li Jiaying, known in Cantonese as Lai Ka-ying, was born in November 1982 and built a career far from the flight line before she ever trained as an astronaut. She studied at the University of Hong Kong and went on to earn a doctorate in computer forensics — the discipline of recovering and analyzing digital evidence. She put that expertise to work as a superintendent in the Hong Kong Police Force, where she specialized in information-technology and forensic investigations. When mainland China opened its astronaut selection to Hong Kong and Macau for the first time, Li applied, and in May 2024 she was chosen as a payload specialist in China's fourth taikonaut group, joining the corps for training later that year and progressing to flight readiness on an accelerated timeline.

Her spaceflight came with Shenzhou 23, launched from Jiuquan on 24 May 2026. Flying as the mission's payload specialist alongside commander Zhu Yangzhu and pilot Zhang Zhiyuan, Li's role was scientific rather than operational: overseeing the experiments and research payloads carried up to the Tiangong station during the crew's long-duration expedition. The launch made her the first person from Hong Kong to reach space, the fourth Chinese woman to fly, and China's first female payload specialist — a set of firsts that turned an already historic national mission into a landmark for her home city. Her selection and flight were celebrated across Hong Kong as proof that a Hongkonger from a civilian, non-pilot background could earn a seat on a national spaceflight.

Li Jiaying's significance lies in what her path represents. For decades the Chinese corps was drawn almost entirely from military pilots; the arrival of scientist- and specialist-astronauts, and now of a Hong Kong police forensics expert with a PhD, signals a broadening of who China sends to orbit and why. As a woman leading the research work of a station expedition, she also extends a lineage of Chinese women in space that began with Liu Yang in 2012. Her mission is still underway, and her status is active — a first-time flyer conducting science aboard Tiangong whose career, like her city's stake in China's space program, is only beginning. That she reached orbit through the study of digital evidence rather than the cockpit of a jet is precisely what makes her story a new kind of Chinese spaceflight story.