China cooperates with Russia and Europe in its manned space program, with future plans for possible coordinated space module dockings, the country's first astronaut said Wednesday.
Yang Liwei, deputy chief of China's Manned Space Agency, said at a press conference at the annual meeting of the Association of Space Exploration (ASE) that China has hosted many astronaut exchanges with the United States, Russia and Europe.
In the past few years, a training exchange was conducted between the China Astronaut Center and European Astronaut Center.
The country has also undergone far-reaching collaboration with other countries in space medicine, scientific experiments and astronaut selection, the astronaut said.
"I myself received micro-gravity training programs in Russia," said Yang, who added that in the Shenzhou-8 mission, China and Russia jointly conducted 17 life science experiments in space.
Yang also said China is willing to cooperate with other countries in space mission, as it has designed interfaces that would allow Chinese space modules to dock with those from other countries.
"We've reserved a platform to cooperate with other countries in missions by having designed interfaces for our space modules so that they can dock with modules of other countries," he said.
China looks forward to cooperating with other countries in space station technology, astronaut training, program design, equipment research and development, and even holding joint missions, he said.