Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

Chinese astronaut trio return to Earth after six-month mission

Georgina Torbet
By

Three Chinese astronauts have returned safely to Earth following a six-month mission on China’s new space station, including the first woman to stay on the Tiangong station. Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping, and Ye Guangfu landed in the Dongfeng landing site in northern China at 9:56 p.m. ET (6:56 p.m. PT) on Friday, April 15 (9:56 a.m. Beijing Time on Saturday, April 16).

According to state news agency Xinhua, the three astronauts were examined by medical personnel at the landing site and confirmed to be in good health. They traveled from the station to Earth in just nine hours, using a newly developed “rapid return mode” which makes the journey from orbit to Earth quicker by using a shorter traveling orbit for the first time for a Chinese crewed spacecraft.

Chinese astronauts Zhai Zhigang (C), Wang Yaping (R) and Ye Guangfu will carry out the Shenzhou-13 spaceflight mission, and Zhai will be the commander, announced the China Manned Space Agency at a press conference on Oct. 14, 2021.
Chinese astronauts Zhai Zhigang (C), Wang Yaping (R) and Ye Guangfu, the crew of the Shenzhou-13 spaceflight mission. Xinhua

The crew launched in October last year, from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China’s Gobi Desert on a Long March-2F rocket. During their stay on the new space station, they worked on scientific research and performed spacewalks twice, with Wang becoming the first Chinese woman to perform a spacewalk. They tested out functions including manual remote operation and module transfer with the station’s robotic arm and tested out the spacewalk hardware like the airlock cabin and EVA suits.

Related

In addition, the astronauts also gave two live classes to schoolchildren on Earth, showing them the microgravity conditions and performing chemistry demonstrations.

The six-month-long mission was China’s longest stay in space to date, breaking the previous record of the Shenzhou 12 mission which lasted three months. Astronauts typically stay on the International Space Station — which China is not involved in — for similar periods of six months (though missions can run longer), so China is demonstrating the viability of its station.

The Tianhe core module of the Tiangong station will soon be joined by two lab modules, Mengtian and Wentian, which are scheduled to be launched on the Tianzhou-4 and Tianzhou-5 cargo spacecraft missions later this year. There are also two more crewed missions planned to launch soon, Shenzhou-14 and Shenzhou-15.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
China’s Tiangong space station has a new three-person crew
Illustration of China’s Tiangong space station.
Orion spacecraft reenters moon’s gravity on its way home
A camera mounted on one of Orion’s four solar arrays captured this image of the Moon on flight day 17 of the 25.5-day Artemis I mission from a distance of more than 222,000 miles from Earth. Orion has exited the distant lunar orbit and is heading for a Dec. 11 splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
How to watch Orion’s return flyby of the moon on Monday
NASA’s uncrewed Orion spacecraft reached a maximum distance of nearly 270,000 miles from Earth during the Artemis I flight test before beginning its journey back toward Earth. Orion captured imagery of the Earth and Moon together from its distant lunar orbit, including this image on Nov. 28, 2022, taken from camera on one of the spacecraft’s solar array wings.
James Webb and Keck Observatory see clouds on Saturn’s moon Titan
Near-infrared Images of Saturn’s moon Titan, as seen by JWST on November 4, 2022 (left), followed by Keck Observatory’s NIRC2 instrument paired with adaptive optics on November 6, 2022 (middle) and November 7, 2022 (right).
How to watch SpaceX launch its new Cargo Dragon capsule to ISS
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon cargo capsule lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on the company’s 22nd Commercial Resupply Services mission to the International Space Station.
Orion spacecraft enters distant retrograde orbit around the moon
View of the Moon seen from ESA's European Service Module that is powering NASA's Orion spacecraft to the Moon and back, on flight day nine of the Artemis I mission, on 24 November 2022.
Strangely chonky exoplanet has astronomers puzzled
Artist’s conception of a gas giant exoplanet orbiting around a Sun-like star. The young exoplanet HD 114082 b revolves around its Sun-like star within 110 days at a distance of 0.5 astronomical units.
All the science that’s launching to the space station today
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with the company’s Dragon cargo spacecraft atop, is raised to a vertical position at NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A on Nov. 21, 2022, in preparation for the 26th commercial resupply services launch to the International Space Station.
Listen to the spooky echoes of a black hole
The black hole in V404 Cygni is actively pulling material away from a companion star — with about half the mass of the Sun — into a disk around the invisible object. A burst of X-rays from the black hole detected in 2015 created the high-energy rings from a phenomenon known as light echoes, where light bounces off of dust clouds in between the system and Earth. In these images, X-rays from Chandra are shown, along with optical data from the Pan-STARRS telescope that depict the stars in the field of view.
Hubble captures a pair of galaxies merging into an unusual ring shape
The galaxy merger Arp-Madore 417-391 steals the spotlight in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The Arp-Madore catalog is a collection of particularly peculiar galaxies spread throughout the southern sky, and includes a collection of subtly interacting galaxies as well as more spectacular colliding galaxies. Arp-Madore 417-391, which lies around 670 million light-years away in the constellation Eridanus in the southern celestial hemisphere, is one such galactic collision. The two galaxies were distorted by gravity and twisted into a colossal ring, leaving their cores nestled side by side.
See a stunning image of the Orion nebula stellar nursery
This infrared image of the Orion Nebula features plenty of dust but no stars. In these infrared wavelengths, it’s possible to see hot spots where new stars are forming, while unseen bright, massive stars have carved out caverns of empty space.
James Webb gets most detailed look yet at an exoplanet’s atmosphere
New observations of WASP-39b with the JWST have provided a clearer picture of the exoplanet, showing the presence of sodium, potassium, water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide in the planet's atmosphere. This artist's illustration also displays newly detected patches of clouds scattered across the planet.
SpaceX Dragon spacecraft delivers new solar arrays and more to ISS
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon cargo craft lifts off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to the International Space Station on Nov. 26, 2022.