Two Chinese astronauts embarked on a spacewalk on Saturday from a new space station due for completion later this year. Cai Xuzhe and Chen Dong installed pumps, a handle to open the hatch door from the outside in an emergency, and a stopper to attach the astronaut’s legs to the robotic arm, state media reported.
China is building its own space station after the US excluded it from the International Space Station because its military controls the country’s space program. US officials see a number of strategic challenges in China’s space ambitions, echoing the US-Soviet rivalry that fueled the race to the moon in the 1960s. The latest spacewalk was the second during a six-month mission that will oversee the completion of the space station. The first of two labs, a 23-ton module, was added to the station in July, and another is due to be sent later this year.
A third crew member, Liu Yang, supported the other two from the inside during the spacewalk. Liu and Chen made their first spacewalk about two weeks ago. They will be joined by three more astronauts near the end of their mission, marking the first time the station will have six people on board. China became the third nation to send a human into space in 2003, after the former Soviet Union and the United States. It sent rovers to the Moon and Mars and brought lunar samples back to Earth.
