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Chinese astronauts prepare to return to Earth after 3-month mission on Tiangong space station
- The three crew members have detached the Shenzhou 12 spaceship from the core module and are making their final preparations
- Their return comes ahead of the Mid-Autumn Festival and one source said they will be back home ‘in time for the mooncakes’
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Three Chinese astronauts are coming home on Friday after a three-month mission to the Tiangong space station, according to the country’s space authority.
The China Manned Space Programme said the Shenzhou 12 spaceship that took the three on the first mission to the new space station would bring them back on Friday ahead of next week’s Mid-Autumn Festival, one of the main times of the year for family reunions.
As preparations for their return were being made at the Dongfeng landing site in northern China, crews at a base in Hainan in southern China were getting ready to launch the unmanned Tianhe 3 cargo ship that will carry supplies to the space station ahead of the arrival of the next manned mission.
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The crew of three – Nie Haisheng, the commander, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo – successfully detached the Shenzhou-12 vessel from the space station’s core module just before 9am on Thursday, completing the first step in their return to Earth.
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Chinese astronauts aboard Tianhe space module conduct clean-up in zero gravity
Chinese astronauts aboard Tianhe space module conduct clean-up in zero gravity
Before leaving their home in orbit for the past three months, the trio woke up at 4am to complete a thorough “house cleaning” and to send data from the experiments they carried out on board back to Earth.
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