Three Chinese astronauts landed in the Inner Mongolia region (northern China) on Saturday after 183 days in space, ending the country’s longest manned space mission, state media reported.
The two-man and one-woman team — Zhai Zhigang, Ye Guangfu and Wang Yaping — returned to Earth in a small capsule just before 10 am Saturday local time (11 pm GMT) after spending six months at the station. Chinese spacecraft Tiangong, which is still under construction.
“The Shenzhou-13 re-entry capsule has successfully landed,” state broadcaster CCTV reported.
The Shenzhou-13 spacecraft is the latest mission in China’s program to rival the United States in space, after landing a rover on Mars and collecting samples from the Moon.
The trio of astronauts took off last October from the Gobi Desert in northwest China as part of the second of four manned missions planned between 2021 and 2022 to set up Tiangong Station, which means “heavenly palace” in Mandarin.
Located at an altitude of 350-400 km, the station will have three modules, of which only one is currently in orbit, Tianhe (“celestial harmony”), where the crew was housed.
During this period, the astronauts carried out scientific experiments, prepared equipment and tested technologies for the next phases of construction, in addition to carrying out two spacewalks.
In one, Wang Yaping became the first Chinese woman to undertake a spacewalk in November.
The final weeks of the mission consisted of preparing the cabin for the crew of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, which is due to launch in the coming months.
