The taikonauts, as Chinese astronauts are called, spent six months aboard the base module of the Tiangong space station that Beijing is building. The crew of the Shenzhou-13 was in space longer than all other Chinese space travelers before them.
During their time in space, the taikonauts made two spacewalks, conducted a series of experiments and prepared the further expansion of the space station. In total, the return flight from the space station, which hovers about 400 kilometers above Earth, took just over nine hours.
China has big ambitions in space. For example, it has already placed a rover on Mars and in 2033 it also wants to make a manned landing on the ‘red planet’. In 2019, China became the first country to place a spacecraft on the ‘back’ of the moon.
