Nie Haisheng is expected to soon create a record for the longest stay in space by a Chinese astronaut as he is slated to take part in his third space mission. Born in 1964 in Central China's Hubei province, Nie comes from a humble financial background. He lived in a village with his six elder sisters and a younger brother doing farm work and studying until he turned 18. Nie had a great passion for planes and read a lot of books when he was a child, according to his classmates. In 1989, when he was flying a newly-modified plane alone, he encountered a sudden in-flight engine shutdown. Seeing the plane lose altitude rapidly, the ground commander ordered Nie to eject from the flight. But, he still tried to bring the plane back to safety risking his life. After all the attempts failed, he abandoned the flight and parachuted to safety when the plane was only four to five hundred neters above the ground. Following his narrow escape, Nie was awarded a thrid-class merit citation for his extraordinary courage. Nearly a decade after the incident, Nie joined the country's first team of astronauts, receiving training much tougher than that for a fighter pilot. He stood out and was selected as one of the final three candidates for China's first manned space mission in 2003. During his 15-day space trek on Shenzhou-10 in 2013, Nie, who held the rank of Major General, conducted the manual space docking in the mission. Nie's success can be attributed to his tough training, as he has conducted more than 2,000 ground simulations achieving 100 percent accuracy in manual docking.