This Sunday, the three Chinese taikonauts who have carried out the first in-orbit crew relay of the Chinese space station Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) have returned to Earth after completing the assembly process of the orbital base.
The Chinese Space Agency has reported that the crew of the Shenzhou-14 mission has arrived at the Dongfeng space base in Inner Mongolia at 8:11 p.m. (local time), hours after their spacecraft undocked from the space station.
The three astronauts–Chen Dong, Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe–are in good health after 183 days of work on the Tiangong station during which they have finished assembling the orbital station, Chinese state media report.
Specifically, in these six months of work, two laboratory modules — Wentian and Mengtian — have been added, connected to the inhabited module called Tianhe, giving it the T-shaped appearance characteristic of the space station. In addition, five docking maneuvers, three extravehicular walks and several experiments have been carried out.
The Chinese space station is now in the hands of the three taikonauts of the Shenzhou-15 mission, who have been at the space base since last week.
China joins the United States and Russia on the list of countries that have built an inhabited space station with the launch of the Tiangong space station. The station will be in operation for about ten years and will be used primarily for experiments in zero gravity.
