After a six-month trip to China’s space station, three astronauts from that country have landed back on the planet.
They left for space on June 5 to supervise the Tiangong space station’s last phase of construction, which was finished in November.
On Sunday, the crew of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft landed in Inner Mongolia, a Chinese autonomous province.
According to China’s space agency, the operation was a “total success.”
In an audio broadcast by state broadcaster CCTV, commander Chen Dong and crewmates Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe claimed they felt well after landing.
The crew was removed from the escape capsule by workers at the landing site shortly after 20:00 local time, or roughly nine hours after docking with the space station.
According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, Ms. Yang, the country’s first female astronaut, said she had an incredible experience in space and was “eager to return to the motherland.”
The three astronauts performed three spacewalks to inspect and test the new facilities while they were in space, where they also oversaw the arrival of the second and third modules for Tiangong.
On Wednesday, a brand-new crew of three Chinese astronauts landed at the space station to perform the first-ever in-orbit crew transfer.
In the Shenzhou-15 spacecraft, the new crew launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert in northwest China.
For six months, they will reside aboard the station. After the NASA-run International Space Station, from which China was expelled in 2011, it will be the second space outpost that will be permanently occupied.
It is the final of 11 missions needed to assemble the station, which will conduct experiments in almost no gravity for about ten years.
According to a representative for the China Manned Space Administration, the new crew will concentrate on setting up facilities and equipment surrounding the space station.
After the US and the Soviet Union, China is the only other nation in history to have launched astronauts into space and constructed a space station.
China’s newest permanent space station is called Tiangong, often known as “Heavenly Palace.” Previously, the nation launched Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2, two temporary test space stations.
China is anticipated to deploy two crewed trips to the station annually over Tiangong’s operational period of the following ten years.
Applicants from the “special administrative territories” of Macau and Hong Kong are now eligible to apply for astronaut positions in China, after previously being denied.
In 1970, China launched its first satellite as the country was experiencing the severe effects of the Cultural Revolution.
China has launched more than 200 rockets in the last ten years.
It has already deployed the unmanned Change 5 mission to the Moon to gather and return rock samples. The Chinese flag, which was purposefully larger than previous US flags, was put on the lunar surface.
