China’s Shenzhou 14 astronauts have handed over management of the Tiangong space station and returned to Earth.
The return capsule from the mission’s Shenzhou spacecraft set down safely after sundown inside the Dongfeng touchdown space within the Gobi Desert within the Inside Mongolia Autonomous Area on Sunday (Dec. 4) at round 7 a.m. EST (1200 GMT, 8:00 p.m. native time), about 9 hours after undocking from the nation’s just lately accomplished Tiangong space station.
The protected return marks the top of a six-month-long mission throughout which astronauts Chen Dong, Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe oversaw the arrival of the second and third modules for Tiangong and carried out three spacewalks to test and check out the brand new amenities.
Associated: China’s Shenzhou 14 astronauts snap stunning photos of Earth, the moon and more
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The three astronauts radioed that they have been feeling high-quality shortly after touchdown, with the message greeted with applause on the Beijing Aerospace Flight Management Middle (BACC).
Earlier than leaving, the crew performed their half within the nation’s first crew handover, with the brand new Wentian and Mengtian modules added to the Tianhe core module permitting each Shenzhou 14 and the newly arrived Shenzhou 15 crews to spend 5 days collectively onboard. The get-together marked the primary time China has had six astronauts in space concurrently.
Chen, Liu and Cai additionally hosted a dwell and interactive science outreach lecture and despatched house stunning images of the Earth and moon throughout their half 12 months in orbit. They have been additionally concerned in 5 rendezvous and docking maneuvers — with modules, new Tianzhou freighters and Shenzhou craft arriving — two spacecraft separations and two module transpositions, which relocated the Wentian and Mengtian modules to their everlasting lateral docking ports.
Shenzhou 14 launched on June 5 this 12 months, reaching the solo Tianhe module 6.5 hours later, however the crew go away behind a accomplished and totally operational, three-module, T-shaped Tiangong space station.
The mission matches the Shenzhou 13 mission in being China’s longest thus far, at 182 days. Mission commander Chen Dong additionally set a brand new Chinese language record for total time in space, changing into the nation’s first astronaut to spend greater than 200 days in orbit. Chen beforehand spent 33 days aboard the Tiangong 2 test space lab, a prototype for the bigger Tiangong modules, in the course of the Shenzhou 11 mission in 2016.
Shenzhou 14 was the third crewed mission to Tiangong, which at first consisted solely of the Tianhe core module, which launched in April 2021. The primary crewed go to to Tianhe, Shenzhou 12, lifted off in June 2021 and landed 92 days later.
The newly underway Shenzhou 15 mission will even final round six months, provided by the TIanzhou 5 freighter. The spacecraft for the next mission is already on the Jiuquan Satellite tv for pc Launch Middle. Shenzhou 16 has been assembled and examined and is on standby in case of want of an emergency launch to Tiangong, according (opens in new tab) to China’s official space information outlet.
The finished Tiangong station — at which Shenzhou 15 and Tianzhou 5 are presently docked — is about 20% as large because the International Space Station (ISS).
The nation plans to maintain the Tiangong space station completely occupied and operational for no less than a decade and will see business missions, worldwide astronauts and even tourist visits to the orbital outpost within the coming years.
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