Astronauts from all around the world head to China this month for the Planetary Congress that seeks to expand space exploration via cooperation among different countries.

The official host and key organizer of the event, which will be held in Beijing, will be China's Manned Space Agency.

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As this is a first, the Chinese space agency is collaborating with an international nonprofit organization called the Association of Space Explorers. This group consists of 395 astronauts and cosmonauts from 35 different nations.

The event will take place from Sept. 10-to-15 in Beijing. The conference's theme is "Cooperation: To Realize Humanity's Space Dream Together."

The goal of this landmark event is to encourage and start an open discussion about international cooperation among different nations when it comes to the future development of human space travel.

Chinese space program officials aim to invite and engage astronauts from all over the world to participate in an effort to make China's planned space station into a world class one.

China clearly wants to attract more countries and organizations to help boost its plans for its own space station.

Yang Liwei who is the vice director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office and also China's first astronaut, leads the list of astronauts invited to the congress. Former NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission, will also join yang on the invite list.

Chinese astronauts will also demonstrate their spacewalking skills and hold a presentation about the flight of China's first female astronaut during a Shenzhou mission last year.

More than 30 space travelers from the United States will attend next week's Planetary Congress. These include active NASA astronauts who will take par as private citizens.

There will also be astronauts from 16 other countries apart from the U.S.

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