China’s three-person Shenzhou 19 mission got here house on Wednesday (April 30) after six months in orbit.
The Shenzhou 19 spacecraft — carrying astronauts Cai Xuzhe, Tune Lingdong and Wang Haoze — undocked from the Tiangong area station on Tuesday (April 29) at 4 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT; 4 a.m. on April 30 China Customary Time), according to Chinese space officials.
The trio spent about 9 hours in transit again to Earth, touching down on the Dongfeng touchdown website in northern China’s Interior Mongolia Autonomous Area on Wednesday at about 1:08 a.m. EDT (0508 GMT; 1:08 p.m. China Customary Time). That was a day later than initially deliberate; the touchdown had been scheduled for Tuesday, however mission planners pushed it again as a consequence of windy climate at Dongfeng.
The Shenzhou 19 astronauts had been in area since Oct. 29, after they launched towards Tiangong. And so they notched some notable milestones throughout that stretch.
For instance, Cai, who was Shenzhou 19’s commander, and Tune spent greater than 9 hours outdoors Tiangong throughout a mid-December spacewalk, setting a brand new document for the longest extravehicular exercise.
The duo put in a brand new area particles protect on Tiangong through the super-long spacewalk. Cai and Tune additionally performed spacewalks on Jan. 20 and March 21, putting in extra shielding and inspecting extravehicular techniques and tools.
The Shenzhou 19 astronauts additionally carried out 86 scientific experiments throughout their time in orbit. A kind of tasks positioned a brick produced from lunar soil simulant on Tiangong’s exterior, to see the way it holds up within the area setting. The outcomes might assist China plan out a moon base, which it intends to construct with worldwide companions within the 2030s.
Shenzhou 19 was the second spaceflight for Cai; he additionally flew to Tiangong on Shenzhou 14 in 2022. Tune and Wang have been spaceflight rookies.
The Shenzhou 19 crew was China’s youngest so far. Cai is 48, and each Tune and Wang — at the moment the nation’s solely feminine spaceflight engineer — have been born in 1990.
The trio welcomed the three-person Shenzhou 20 mission to Tiangong on April 24 and formally handed the keys to the station over to the newcomers throughout a change-of-command ceremony on April 27.
China completed assembling the three-module Tiangong, which is about 20% as huge because the Worldwide Area Station, in November 2022. Shenzhou 19 was the eighth crewed mission to the orbiting lab.
