Listen to Chen Dong’s growth story: It feels so good to have a dream come true!

At 10:44 a.m. Beijing time on June 5, 2022, the Long March 2F Yao 14 carrier rocket carrying the Shenzhou 14 manned spacecraft was ignited and launched at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. About 577 seconds later, the Shenzhou 14 manned spacecraft successfully separated from the rocket and entered the predetermined orbit. The flight crew was in good condition and the launch was a complete success.

Chen Dong, who went into space again after 6 years, became the first commander born after 1975 in the history of China's space industry.

Today, let us learn about the heroic astronaut Chen Dong’s growth story.

I was born in Luoyang, Henan Province in 1978. I have an older brother who is four years older than me. My parents were very strict in educating us. When I was a child, I admired the soldiers in the movies who held guns and beat the enemy. I envied other children who carried military schoolbags and wore military caps. The dream of joining the army to serve the country sprouted from then on.

From primary school to middle school, my academic performance has always been excellent. When I took the college entrance examination, I only filled out one application, which was Changchun Flight Academy. In the end, I got my wish and wore a military uniform and became a flight student. It felt so good to have my dream come true. At that time, there was no WeChat and I couldn’t post to Moments, so I took a lot of photos in military uniform and sent one to my family, relatives, and classmates. I spent all my monthly allowance on developing photos.

Soon, this feeling of floating in the sky was pulled back to the ground by frustration.

When I first joined the army, because I was not good at folding quilts and my physical fitness was not up to standard, I was "honored" to join the quilt-folding and physical fitness test team. (The word "honorable" is in quotation marks.)

During a housekeeping inspection, I was the only one in the class whose quilt was thrown into the corridor for display. I felt so ashamed at that time that I wanted to crawl into the cracks in the ground. From then on, I started to work hard and take it seriously. During lunch break, when everyone else was resting, I found an empty space in the conference room, wiped it clean with a rag, spread the quilt on the ground, and pressed it over and over again. Slowly, I finally folded the quilt into a tofu block.

When I first entered the aviation school, I was a little bloated. The standard for the horizontal and parallel bars was 16, but I could only do 3 or 4. The standard for the 1500-meter run was 5 minutes and 10 seconds, but my score was 7 minutes. The aviation school stipulated that if you failed any subject, you would be eliminated. I thought that my dream of flying a fighter jet into the blue sky must not end because of this.

During each morning exercise, I would run one more lap than others and tie some sandbags on my legs. I would not save any energy in physical education class and would grit my teeth to persevere. Sometimes I would even run until I vomited. After turning off the lights at night, I would do push-ups and sit-ups by myself, and then run up the stairs until I was exhausted and fell asleep. In this way, I lost more than 10 pounds in 3 months. I achieved excellent results in all aspects and became the captain of the district.

In April 1999, I joined the Communist Party of China with honor. In the autumn of that year, I flew a training plane into the blue sky and finally obtained a diploma in fighter flight and command with excellent results.

In 2001, I graduated and was assigned to a regiment of the Zhejiang Jiaxing Air Force. I started to participate in fighter flight training and flew the "Jiang-6" and "Qiang-5" aircraft. I worked hard to study technology, innovate tactics to defeat the enemy, and continuously improve my ability to handle special situations. I completed training tasks with high standards every year without making a single mistake. In 11 years, I accumulated 1,500 hours of safe flight and won the third-class merit twice.

In 2003, the Shenzhou V mission was a complete success, and Yang Liwei became China's first man to fly into space; in 2005, two astronauts, Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng, successfully completed the Shenzhou VI mission. I heard that all astronauts were selected from fighter pilots, and I had a new dream of becoming an astronaut.

I married my wife Wang Xiaoyan in 2005. She knew that flying was full of dangers, but she never complained and fully supported my flying career.

In 2009, I was leading the flight brigade to participate in an exercise in the northwest. The head of the regiment called me and said that the troops were conducting the second batch of astronaut selection physical examinations. Since you are still on duty, the superiors decided that you will not participate in this selection. After hanging up the phone, I felt that the sky was gray and I couldn't eat lunch. Just when I was extremely upset, I didn't expect that the door of opportunity opened again. The superiors notified us to participate in the supplementary examination collectively, and the supplementary examination went smoothly.

In May 2010, I officially became a member of the astronaut corps.

On the first day of reporting to the Astronaut Corps, I saw space heroes who had represented the country in space welcoming us at the door. It felt like a dream to be able to fight side by side with the heroes in my mind. I was very excited.

The seniors sat down with us and shared their experiences and lessons without reservation. I remember astronaut Wu Jie told me that the most important thing for astronauts is to be "cautious when alone". From them, I also more deeply understand the meaning of "cautious when alone", which is to abandon all distractions, concentrate all energy, and practice the "flying" skills with one mind.

During the Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10 missions, we on the ground were always paying attention to the performance of our comrades in space. We used to feel proud and excited when watching the live broadcast on TV, but now we feel more concerned and hope that our comrades can complete the mission successfully and return safely.

When Brother Liu Wang threaded the needle in space and made it dock perfectly, my eyes were wet; when Wang Yaping gave a lecture in space, I listened with gusto like a primary school student.

After the Shenzhou 11 crew was selected, Jing Haipeng and I trained, ate, and took walks together. We gradually became familiar with each other's personalities, tempers, and habits, and even created some agreed gestures and movements.

As time goes by, they can understand each other's intentions with just a glance or a move. With the foundation of ground training, they can cooperate very well in the sky.

October 17, 2016 is the day we set off into space.

At around 1 a.m., I was woken up from my sleep and began various preparations before the launch.

I remember when we were heading to the launch tower from Wentian Pavilion, both sides of the road were lined with crowds of people coming to see us off. Outside the car, everyone was waving and cheering, and inside the car we were singing "Singing the Motherland". When the song "The five-star red flag is fluttering in the wind" sounded, our eyes were wet.

The countdown to the launch began. With the command of "ignition", the rocket took off into the sky, and it felt as smooth as riding a high-speed train.

I remember when the rocket fairing was just opened, I saw the scenery in space for the first time. It felt so beautiful. Senior Brother Jing Haipeng asked me, "Is it cool?" I answered excitedly, "It's cool!"

As my body was still restrained in the basin of the chair, I couldn't help but loosen the pen in my hand and let it float in the air like a feather that I could manipulate at will.

However, when the spacecraft entered the predetermined orbit, the initial excitement of weightlessness began to disappear, and my body began to feel hot. At first I thought it was the heat from the sunlight. I moved a few times and felt a little dizzy. Then I realized that I had space motion sickness. The blood was affected by weightlessness and gathered in the head. My head began to swell, my face also swelled up, my eyes bulged out, and it was extremely uncomfortable.

At night, I crawled into my sleeping bag, but I felt like I was still floating. I didn't have the solid feeling of lying in bed, and I couldn't fall asleep. It was with the help of Senior Brother Jing Haipeng that I slowly got used to the feeling of weightlessness.

You only need to push it gently to fly to where you want to go, and open your mouth to eat the food that floats over. Difficult movements on the ground are all a piece of cake here. Although the face is still a little swollen, the skin is very smooth, without any wrinkles, and the person looks a lot younger.

After the Shenzhou spacecraft successfully rendezvoused and docked with the Tiangong-2, various tasks were fully launched. We worked 8 to 10 hours a day. We worked as "farmers" to grow vegetables, as "drivers" to fly the spacecraft, as "repairmen" to maintain the spacecraft, as "doctors" to check health, as "engineers" to conduct experiments, as "keepers" to take care of small animals, etc. Every day was very fulfilling.

The first experiment we started was raising silkworms in space. After entering Tiangong-2, we couldn't wait to open the test bag and saw the silkworms moving. We were so happy at that moment. Since then, we have to observe them, feed them, and clean the room at irregular intervals every day.

On the sixth day of the flight of the complex, a silkworm finally spun silk. The purpose of this experiment was to see whether the silkworm could still spin silk in a weightless environment and whether the silk spun had the same direction as on the ground. A few days later, the silkworm finished weaving the cocoon and the experiment was a success.

Weightlessness has a great impact on the verification of the space treadmill restraint device. At the beginning, we always couldn't run. There were more than a dozen round tubes arranged side by side on the treadmill, and we needed to push these tubes with our feet to make them rotate.

A total of four experiments were arranged. There was no progress in the first experiment, and we were under a lot of pressure. So we studied and pondered it bit by bit. After two experimental improvements, we finally succeeded. We ran for 30 minutes at a time, letting the sweat flow freely. We slept very well that night.

A total of 38 scientific experiments were arranged for this mission. During the experiments, we strictly followed the requirements and strived to do our best, providing ground scientific researchers with valuable and rich experimental data.

During our work and life in Tiangong-2, we also received a special gift: a video transmitted through the space-to-earth communication system. Comrades from grassroots units from all over the country sent us blessings from the warships braving the wind and waves, counting at border outposts, and fighting in positions in the snow and ice.

After watching the video, I was deeply moved. I thought, whether in space or on the ground, no matter what position we work in, we and our comrades are fighting side by side and striving for the dream of a strong military.

What I will never forget is that on November 9, President Xi Jinping personally came to the command center of the manned space program to talk to us. At that time, we were conducting a robotic arm technology experiment. The President asked us kindly about our health, life, and whether our work was going well. Hearing the President's kind words and seeing his familiar figure was so exciting that I will never forget it.

After 33 days of space life, we returned to the ground as planned. The process of the spacecraft returning was thrilling for me, a new recruit in the space industry.

When the spacecraft returned to the capsule through the black barrier, we felt like we were sitting in a big fireball, falling continuously. The temperature outside the capsule was over 1000 degrees Celsius. Through the porthole, we could feel the return capsule engine working, hear the "thumping" sound, and see the red flames flickering until the porthole was covered with ablated material and turned black, and we could no longer see the outside.

When the return capsule parachute opened, there was a loud noise at first, the parachute cover popped up, and then there was violent and irregular shaking. It felt like a small boat in strong winds and waves. After a while, it slowly stabilized.

During the landing, the reentry capsule bounced several times on the ground. Although I was wearing a safety belt and my body was tense, my arms were thrown off and my legs bounced due to the violent impact. It was not until we issued a command to cut off the parachute that I felt the capsule stopped.

Finally home!

33 days is too short for a person’s lifetime, but the 33 days of the Shenzhou 11 mission will remain in my memory forever.

In July 2017, on the eve of the military parade to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the army, my senior brother Jing Haipeng and I went to the parade village to visit and learn. The vigorous and vigorous style of the officers and soldiers on parade and their high morale in preparing for war left a very deep impression on us.

I think that although we have different positions and responsibilities, the great dream of a strong military is our common ideal and goal, which requires every one of us soldiers to work hard for it.

President Xi encouraged us to scale new heights and keep moving forward in the development of the aerospace industry, so as to make great contributions to building a strong aerospace nation and a world power in science and technology!

I will bear in mind the Chairman’s hopes and trust, work hard on the “road to heaven”, and always move forward!

(The text and audio were first published on February 9, 2020, with the original title "Heroic Astronaut Chen Dong: It feels so good to have a dream come true!")

(Our Space)