Chen Dong was born on 12 December 1978 in Luoyang, Henan Province, China. He trained as a fighter pilot in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force and graduated from the PLAAF Changchun Flight Academy, later earning a master’s degree in engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University. Selected as part of China’s second batch of taikonauts in May 2010, he made his first spaceflight aboard Shenzhou 11 in October 2016, spending 33 days aboard the Tiangong‑2 space lab. His second mission came in June 2022 on Shenzhou 14, serving as commander for about six months aboard the Tiangong space station, during which he led three spacewalks and oversaw the docking of Wentian and Mengtian modules, setting a new national record of 214 cumulative days in space . In April 2025, Chen began his third mission aboard Shenzhou 20, launching on 24 April as mission commander for another six‑month stay aboard Tiangong.