Summary 204 days in orbit, three Chinese astronauts flew back to Earth on Friday aboard the Shenzhou spacecraft, leaving three crew members on the Tiangong space station with a damaged lifeboat.
Commander Chen Dong, completing his third trip into space, and crew novices Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie landed inside the spacecraft at the Dongfeng landing zone at 1:29 a.m. EST (06:29 UTC) on Friday. The parachute-assisted landing took place in the afternoon at the re-entry zone, located in the remote Gobi Desert in northwest China.
Chinese space officials stopped work at the country’s Tiangong space laboratory last week after astronauts discovered damage to one of two Shenzhou reentry capsules docked at the station. China’s Manned Space Agency, run by the country’s military, announced changes to the space station flight plan On November 4, the day before, three crew members were scheduled to depart and fly home.
Chen and his crewmates were preparing to board the Shenzhou 20 spacecraft and return to Earth, days after the arrival of three replacement crew members on the newly launched Shenzhou 21 capsule. Shenzhou 20 is the same spacecraft that launched Chen’s crew in April.
However, just over a week ago, Chinese officials said that the Shenzhou 20 spacecraft was “suspected of being hit by small space debris” and confirmed that the return trip would be postponed. Officials did not provide any additional details.
China’s human spaceflight agency issued a cryptic statement earlier this week saying preparations were underway for the crew to dock and land, but the circumstances of the return remained unclear until hours before the astronauts returned home. Officials finally confirmed details of the return to Earth tardy Thursday.
“Based on preliminary image analysis, design review, simulation analysis and wind tunnel tests, a comprehensive assessment revealed that a small crack has appeared in the window glass of the reentry capsule of the Shenzhou 20 manned spacecraft, most likely caused by an external impact from space debris,” the China Human Space Agency wrote on China’s Weibo social media platform. “This does not meet the conditions of release for safe crew return.”
Replacing a spacecraft in Earth orbit
Because their original spacecraft was deemed unsafe, Chen and his companions instead returned to Earth on the newer spacecraft Shenzhou 21, which launched and arrived at Tiangong Station on October 31. The three astronauts who launched on Shenzhou 21 – Zhang Lu, Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang – remain aboard the nearly 100-ton space station, and only the damaged Shenzhou 20 spacecraft can take them home.
China’s Shenzhou line of spacecraft not only provides transportation to and from low Earth orbit, but also serves as lifeboats to evacuate astronauts from China’s space station in the event of an in-flight emergency, such as a major accident or medical crisis. They perform the same role as the Russian Soyuz and SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicles that fly to and from the International Space Station.
Another Shenzhou spacecraft, Shenzhou 22, “will be launched at a later date,” China’s Manned Space Administration said in a statement. Shenzhou 20 will remain in orbit to “continue relevant experiments.” The laboratory at Tiangong was designed to support six-person crews only for tiny periods, with three astronauts staying longer.