The three astronauts returned to Earth on Saturday after completing China’s longest space mission . The travelers landed in the Inner Mongolia region after serving 183 days in space. The CCTV chain highlighted that “the Shenzhou-13 re-entry capsule has successfully landed.”
Astronauts Zhai Zhigang, Ye Guangfu and Wang Yaping had taken off in October 2021 from the Gobi desert. Their mission was the second of four manned missions to assemble the Tiangong station. The travelers completed six months in the structure that is still under construction.
The Xinhua Agency detailed that the capsule returned shortly before 10:00 local time . The Shenzhou-13 spacecraft is the latest mission of the Chinese program, which has already managed to take a rover to Mars and collect samples from the Moon. The main purpose of the Chinese space travelers was to assemble part of the station called “Heavenly Palace”.
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Tiangong Station is located at an altitude of 350 to 400 kilometers from the earth’s surface. For now, it is in orbit with one of the three modules that it will have at the end of its construction in space. The Tianhe module is where the three crew members of the Chinese mission stayed.
The astronauts also carried out scientific experiments, prepared equipment and tested technologies for the next stages of construction. In the mission, traveler Wang Yaping became the first Chinese woman to perform a spacewalk in November .
Experts receive the Shenzhou-13 mission that arrived in Inner Mongolia