BEIJING – Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on Friday after spending nearly seven months in space and completing the relief with another crew earlier this week.
The ship carrying Zhang Lu, Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang, members of the Shenzhou 21 crew, landed at night at the Dongfeng landing point in the Inner Mongolia region of northern China. Their return comes as China prepares for its first moon landing in 2030.
The crew had completed various tasks, from processing and transmitting experimental data to transferring the remaining supplies, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing the Chinese Manned Space Agency. They also shared their experience with the crew of Shenzhou 23, which arrived at the space station on Monday, according to Xinhua.
1/8 | Artemis II leaves the dark side of the Moon: photos from the ship. NASA’s Artemis II Orion spacecraft regained contact with Earth this Monday after spending about 40 minutes in absolute silence while flying over the far side of the Moon, a common interruption in this type of mission. – The Associated Press
Xinhua previously reported that the crew had completed three spacewalks. Space agency spokesperson Zhang Jingbo said Zhang Lu, who was also on a previous Shenzhou 15 mission to the space station, had completed seven such operations in total, becoming the Chinese astronaut with the most spacewalks, the report added.
One of the three astronauts who arrived at the Tiangong space station with the Shenzhou 23 spacecraft will stay for a year. Tiangong means “Heavenly Palace” in Chinese.
The astronauts are Zhu Yangzhu, the commander, Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying, also identified by Chinese authorities as Li Jiaying, using the Mandarin transliteration of her name. Lai, born and raised in Hong Kong, is the city’s first astronaut on a space mission.
As China ramps up its space program, its astronauts have made multiple missions to the Tiangong space station, developed after China was excluded from the International Space Station for national security reasons.
This story was translated from English to Spanish with an artificial intelligence tool and was reviewed by an editor before publication.