Chinese astronauts safely return after successful space mission

DONGFENG: After a six-month mission aboard the Tiangong space station, Chinese astronauts Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie, and Jiang Xinlin safely returned to Earth as part of Shenzhou-17 spaceflight.

The return capsule carried the Chinese astronauts and touched down at the Dongfeng landing site in the “Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region”. The astronauts emerged from their capsule in good health.

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The mission spanned 187 days in orbit around Earth.

With the latest space mission, the commander Tang Hongbo managed to accumulate 279 days in space across two missions, including Shenzhou-12 and Shenzhou-17. This has set a new record for the longest spaceflight duration by a Chinese astronaut.

Another crew member Tang Shengjie became the youngest astronaut to enter China’s space station at 34.

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Shenzhou-17 marked the 12th crewed Chinese spaceflight and the seventeenth overall of the Shenzhou programme. The spaceflight to the Tiangong space station launched on October 26 last year.

It carried three astronauts from the People’s Liberation Army Astronaut Corps. The mission was the sixth spaceflight to the Tiangong space station.

The spaceflight was launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center and the space crew shared a four-day overlap with the space crew of Shenzhou-16 before the latter’s departure.