Three Chinese astronauts who were stranded aboard the Tiangong space station after their original return craft was apparently damaged by space debris have begun their journey home, China’s space agency said Friday. They are returning aboard the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft, which had arrived earlier with a replacement crew.
Their capsule is expected to land later the same day in a remote part of Inner Mongolia in northwest China.
The trio — Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui, and Wang Jie — had spent six months in orbit and were initially scheduled to return on November 5. However, their departure was delayed after minor cracks were discovered in a window of the Shenzhou-20 return capsule, likely caused by fast-moving space debris.
Millions of tiny debris fragments orbit Earth at extremely high speeds, posing ongoing risks to satellites, space stations, and astronauts.
The Shenzhou-20 will remain in orbit, though it is unclear if the switch in spacecraft will alter the schedule of future missions. The next mission, Shenzhou-22, is planned but no launch date has been announced.
The astronauts, who arrived at Tiangong in April, were reported to be in good health and operating normally in recent days. China’s space program, which has advanced steadily since its first crewed mission in 2003, aims to land astronauts on the moon by 2030.
The Shenzhou-21 mission also delivered four mice to the station as part of experiments on the effects of weightlessness and confined environments.
