Zhai Zhigang, Ye Guangfu and Wang Yaping, the three Chinese astronauts aboard Tianhe, the habitation module of the Chinese space station Tiangong, came back to earth after six months in space. It is the longest manned space mission ever undertaken by China.
New space record for China
The astronauts or taikonauts, as the country calls them, broke a new record in China. They stayed 183 days in space. It is the longest crewed mission ever carried out by the country. Wang Yaping was also the first female astronaut to live aboard Tianhe and the first Chinese woman to perform a spacewalk. China has a string of exploits in space and seems determined to show the world its ambition for the conquest of space.
US calls for halt to anti-satellite missile testing
The taikonauts were part of the Shenzhou-13 mission, which is the second in a series of four crewed missions and the fifth of eleven overall missions that China intends to launch for complete the construction of its space station by the end of 2022. The three astronauts of Shenzhou-13 carried out two spacewalks and carried out about twenty scientific experiments in orbit around the Earth. They also learned how to manually control the Tianhe module for a docking experience with an unmanned cargo ship.
China’s space station takes shape
As China is not a partner of the ISS (the International Space Station), it intends deploy your own space station. The Chinese space agency has sent the first crewed mission to its “nascent station” in June 2021. At the time, the three astronauts stayed on Tianhe for three months, to test the module and perform a few spacewalks. In June 2022, China plans to launch its next crewed mission dubbed Shenzhou-14. Three other taikonauts will again spend six months in orbit.
In 2021, China led in space launches, ahead of the United States. Moreover, the year which has just ended is the one who will have seen the greatest number of space launch attempts and successes. The previous record dates back to 1967. The days when launches were dominated by Russia and the United States are over. Today, space launches no longer depend solely on these two great powers. Other actors entered the dance. This is particularly the case of China and India. In 2021, the Chinese government made 56 attempts, of which 53 were successful.