The country's first person in space, Yang was launched on 15 October 2003 aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft for a flight that lasted 21 hours and 23 minutes. His re-entry capsule landed by parachute in Inner Mongolia.

Yang was born in Suizhong County in Liaoning Province in northeast China. He joined the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) in 1983 and graduated from aviation college of the PLA air force in 1987. He became a pilot and in 1999 was selected with 13 others to train for the space flight at the Astronaut Training Base in Beijing and at the Jiuquan Launch Centre. In 2006 he retired from the taikonaut program to become vice-director of the China Astronaut Research and Training Center, and by 2010 he was deputy director of the Project 921 Office.