After six months aboard the “Tiangong” space station, three taikonauts have landed safely in the Gobi desert. The Chinese completed field missions and experiments and gave physics lessons from space.
Chinese astronauts Wang Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu have returned to Earth after 183 days. Their capsule landed safely in the Gobi desert of northern China just before 10 a.m. Beijing time (4 a.m. CEST). As the state television broadcaster CCTV reported, this ended the country’s longest manned space mission to date.
The television broadcast live and showed images from inside the capsule, which flew at 200 meters per second over Africa before entering the atmosphere.
Physics lessons from space
Zhai, Wang and Ye had spent the six months aboard the Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) space station, with military pilot Wang becoming the first Chinese to complete a spacewalk. The mission was led by Wang Zhai Zhihang, who became the first Chinese to walk in space in 2008.
In addition to a total of two field trips to work at the station, the taikonauts carried out numerous scientific experiments and technology tests. In December, the crew gave physics lessons to Chinese students from space.
The team was the second crew on the station, which is set to be joined by two more modules this year. In recent years, China has invested billions in its space programs in order to catch up with the USA and Russia.
The core module of the space station was launched into orbit only last year. According to Chinese plans, the “Tiangong” should be fully operational this year. China then wants to maintain a permanent manned outpost there. The Chinese government plans to send humans to the moon for the first time in 2029.
After the former Soviet Union and the USA, China is only the third country to have brought astronauts into space with their own technology. China is barred from the International Space Station because its space program is run by the army, which the US opposes.
