Three Chinese astronauts landed in the northern desert on Sunday after six months of work to complete construction of Tiangong Station, a symbol of the country’s ambitious space program, state television reported. The capsule carrying commander Chen Dong and astronauts Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe touched down at the landing site in the Gobi Desert in northern China at approximately 8:10 p.m. (1210 GMT), China Central Television reported.
Before departure, they overlapped for nearly five days with three colleagues who arrived Wednesday on the Shenzhou-15 mission for their own six-month stay, the first time China has had six astronauts in space at the same time. The station’s third and final module joined the station this month. The astronauts were taken out of the capsule by medics about 40 minutes after landing. They were all smiling and seemed to be in good shape, happily waving to the workers on the landing pad.
“I am very fortunate to have witnessed the completion of the basic structure of the Chinese space station after six busy and fulfilling months in space,” said Chen, who was the first to leave the capsule. “Like meteors we returned to embrace from the homeland.” Liu, another of the astronauts, said she was moved to see relatives and her fellow citizens. The three astronauts were part of the Shenzhou-14 mission, which launched in June. After arriving at Tiangong, Chen, Liu, and Cai oversaw five rendezvous and docking with various spacecraft, including one carrying the third of the station’s three modules.
They also performed three spacewalks, broadcast a live science lecture from the station, and conducted a number of experiments. Tiangong is part of China’s official plans for a permanent human presence in orbit. China built its own station after being excluded from the International Space Station, largely due to US objections over China’s space programs’ close ties to the People’s Liberation Army, the military wing of the ruling Communist Party.
With the arrival of the Shenzhou-15 mission, the station expanded to a maximum weight of 100 tons. Without the spacecraft attached, China’s station weighs about 66 tons — a fraction of the International Space Station, which launched its first module in 1998 and weighs about 465 tons. With a lifespan of 10 to 15 years, Tiangong could one day be the only space station still in operation if the International Space Station is decommissioned around the end of the decade, as expected.
In 2003, China became the third government, after the former Soviet Union and the United States, to send an astronaut into orbit by itself. China has also had unmanned mission successes: Its Yutu 2 rover was the first to explore the little-known far side of the moon. Its Chang’e 5 probe also returned moon rocks to Earth in December 2020 for the first time since the 1970s, and another Chinese rover is searching for evidence of life on Mars. Officials are reportedly considering a possible manned mission to the moon, though no timeline has been offered.
