(ECNS) -- Huang Xiaochi, a 73-year-old technology expert from Foshan in south China’s Guangdong Province, booked ticket No. 022 for a suborbital space tourism flight in Foshan on Saturday.

She is expected to travel aboard the domestically developed CYZ1 crewed spacecraft in about two years, becoming one of the first passengers on a Chinese commercial crewed spacecraft.

The CYZ1 will cross the Kármán line, 100 kilometers above sea level, widely recognized as the boundary of space.

Huang is a veteran of China’s home appliance industry and a national model worker. Twice awarded second prize in the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award, she joined the predecessor of Kelon in 1983 and rose from metrology inspector to vice president for technology.

In the late 1980s, she led an eight-year effort to replace CFC refrigerants, making Kelon the first Chinese appliance maker to fully phase them out.

Around 2002, she moved into digital navigation maps and helped build a high-precision database covering China’s road network. 

"Spaceflight used to be a state endeavor. Now commercial human spaceflight is gradually opening up to ordinary people," Huang said. "This is an opportunity the times have given me. I’m here at the right time — so why not go?"

(By Helen Mo, intern Yang Hongran)