On Tuesday, the crew of the Shenzhou 16 spacecraft successfully returned to Earth after a five-month mission aboard China’s Tiangong orbital station. The office of the Chinese human spaceflight program confirmed this information, writes RIA News.
The descent module of the Shenzhou 16 manned spacecraft landed at the Dongfeng landing site in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in northern China at 8.11 Beijing time (3.11 Moscow time) on October 31, 2023. In the statement of the Ministry, it was stated that the physical condition of all three astronauts was evaluated as good and the Shenzhou-16 mission was considered a complete success.
The Shenzhou 16 crew has been on station since May 30, 2023. Among them was crew commander Jing Haipeng, who participated in manned missions for the fourth time and held the record for the number of flights. The crew also included PLA fourth-class astronaut Zhu Yangzhu, who served as a flight engineer, and Gui Haichao, a professor at Beihang University and the People’s Republic of China’s first civilian astronaut. For Gui Haichao and Zhu Yangzhu, the Shenzhou 16 mission was the first flight into space.
The crew of the Shenzhou-17 spacecraft remains at the Tiangong orbital station. reached 26 October. Crew commander Tang Hongbo said that for him this is already the second mission on the Chinese orbital station. He was also the Chinese astronaut with the shortest time between two missions. The crew also includes Tang Shengjie and Jiang Xinlin, who made their first flights into space. The Shenzhou 17 crew will work at the station for approximately six months.
Construction of the Tiangong National Orbital Station started on April 29, 2021, and the assembly of the main configuration of the station was completed on November 3, 2022. It consists of the main compartment “Tianhe” with a total weight of approximately 69 tons and two laboratory modules “Wentian” and “Mentian”. The station has approximately 110 cubic meters of living space and can accommodate three astronauts at a time and six people during crew changes.
The operational life of the station is planned to be 15 years until 2038. At the end of 2023, the launch of the Xuntian autonomous astrophysics module with an optical telescope is planned, which will periodically dock with the station for maintenance.
It was before beaten Record number of people in Earth orbit.