The uncrewed Shenzhou-22 mission will launch a Shenzhou spacecraft on a Lengthy March 2F rocket on Nov. 25 to supply the stranded Shenzhou-21 crew a manner house. The Lengthy March 2F booster is pictured right here through the manned Shenzhou-13 launch in 2021. Credit score: China Information Service, CC BY 3.0, through Wikimedia Commons/
- A crack, probably attributable to house particles, within the Shenzhou-20 return capsule’s window glass rendered it unsafe for manned reentry, necessitating another return process.
- The Chinese language Manned Area Company (CMSA) repurposed the newly arrived Shenzhou-21 spacecraft because the transport car for the outgoing Shenzhou-20 crew, who returned safely after an prolonged 204-day mission.
- This resolution resulted within the Shenzhou-21 crew remaining aboard the Tiangong Area Station with out a devoted return car, creating a brief security vulnerability.
- To deal with this case, China is accelerating the launch of an uncrewed Shenzhou-22 spacecraft to the Tiangong Area Station, which can function the emergency lifeboat for the present crew.
The secure return of the Shenzhou-20 crew this previous Friday introduced an finish to the longest single keep in orbit for any Chinese language crew. The crew landed on the Dongfeng touchdown website in north China’s Internal Mongolia Autonomous Area, ending their 204-day mission. But, that profitable homecoming instantly ushered in a brand new, albeit non permanent, disaster.
Whereas the three taikonauts touched down safely on Friday, they left their replacements — the Shenzhou-21 crew — marooned aboard the Tiangong Area Station, with no journey house within the occasion of an emergency.
The story of the stranded Shenzhou-21 crew begins with the previous mission. The Shenzhou-20 crew, consisting of Commander Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui, and Wang Jie, launched for his or her six-month keep onboard Tiangong April 24, 2025. Their mission, the ninth crewed flight to the house station, was continuing usually till late of their rotation.
The pivotal occasion occurred simply earlier than the scheduled handover. The Shenzhou-21 crew — Commander Zhang Lu, Zhang Hongzhang, and Wu Fei — docked on the Tiangong house station Oct. 31, starting their very own six-month mission and a short week-long overlap of the 2 crews.
Throughout predeparture checks, the Shenzhou-20 return capsule was found to have sustained harm: a small crack was discovered within the return capsule’s window glass. The Chinese language Manned Area Company (CMSA) reported that the harm was probably the results of an impression from a chunk of house particles.
The CMSA analyzed the harm, and concluded that the Shenzhou-20 return capsule didn’t meet the security necessities for a manned return house. The CMSA made the choice to repurpose the newly arrived Shenzhou-21 spacecraft because the transport car for the outgoing crew.
On Nov. 14, the Shenzhou-20 taikonauts returned safely within the Shenzhou-21 capsule. Their keep on the Tiangong house station was prolonged an additional 9 days earlier than their return house.
“The trail of human house exploration is just not clean. It’s stuffed with difficulties and challenges. However that’s precisely why we select to stroll this path,” Chen Dong, the Shenzhou-20 mission commander, advised reporters after the profitable touchdown, based on the Associated Press.
Whereas Xinhua celebrated the secure arrival of the crew as “the primary profitable implementation of another return process within the nation’s house station program historical past,” the consequence of the choice is that the Shenzhou-21 crew is now left aboard Tiangong with out a Shenzhou capsule to function a lifeboat in case of an emergency.
This leaves some observers uneasy. “I’m very glad that they received house, however it’s a bit disconcerting that the substitute crew apparently doesn’t have a car to return again to Earth,” Victoria Samson, chief director of house safety and stability on the Safe World Basis (a nonprofit that works with governments and worldwide organizations to make sure the peaceable use of house for all Earth’s folks), advised Scientific American over the weekend.
To deal with the state of affairs, China is accelerating the launch of the Shenzhou-22 spacecraft, which can fly to Tiangong uncrewed to function the lifeboat for the present crew.
Whereas CMSA has solely stated that the launch will occur “at an acceptable time sooner or later,” exterior reporting from Andrew Jones of SpaceNews primarily based on airspace closures suggests the launch may very well be as early as Nov. 25, 2025. This speedy response, as Jones noted, is feasible as a result of Chinese language house program’s protocol of retaining a Lengthy March 2F rocket and Shenzhou capsule on the prepared always for emergencies.
It’s unclear what’s going to occur to the broken Shenzhou-20 spacecraft. If it may be repaired in orbit, then it might be returned to Earth as deliberate. However, as Igor Marinin, academician on the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics, defined to Reuters, if the harm is just not repairable, the craft could also be decommissioned and despatched out of orbit over the Pacific Ocean. Whatever the capsule’s destiny, it’ll must be undocked to make room for the Shenzhou-22 spacecraft’s arrival.
The predicament of Zhang Lu, Zhang Hongzhang, and Wu Fei remembers the saga of NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose Boeing Starliner mission prolonged from a deliberate 10 days to almost 9 months in 2024 on account of spacecraft points.
Nevertheless, the Tiangong state of affairs is momentarily extra precarious. Not like the Starliner crew, who all the time had different secure, working spacecraft docked to the ISS that they may have utilized in an emergency, the Shenzhou-21 crew at the moment has no viable different craft at hand. They’re totally reliant on the speedy, profitable deployment of the uncrewed Shenzhou-22 mission to revive their security margin.
