Chinese astronauts prepare for trip home after 6 months at space station
- Trio set to return to Earth in April as planned, and will bring back data from the experiments they have conducted
- They will restore the cabin to its unmanned state and put life-support systems in sleep mode, while staff on the ground are getting ready for their arrival
“The crew in orbit and search-and-retrieval team on the ground in Inner Mongolia are all preparing for their return,” the source said. “So far, all is going smoothly.”
The astronauts – Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu – will bring back data from the experiments they have carried out in orbit.
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Meanwhile, the Tianzhou 2 cargo spacecraft, having delivered supplies for the crew, had been detached from the space station and would soon re-enter the atmosphere, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said on Sunday.
Tianzhou 2 will carry back the waste generated in the space station during recent missions. Upon re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, the spacecraft, along with the waste it carries, will burn up, the space station’s chief designer Yang Hong has said previously.
A second source said that the three astronauts would be “very busy”, with “a lot of preparation” to be done in the next two weeks.
“They need to restore the cabin environment as thoroughly as possible,” the source said. “All the fitness equipment, laboratory supplies, spare parts and so on that have been used must be reattached to the walls to prevent them floating around, and the crew will check the remaining supplies so that the optimal amount to be carried on the Tianzhou 4 cargo craft later this year can be gauged.”
The trio will leave the station’s air filtering and water regeneration systems in sleep mode until the next crew’s arrival.
Wang was the second Chinese woman in space and became the first to complete a spacewalk. The crew conducted two during the mission, during which they installed parts on the outside of the space station.
The trio last Wednesday live-streamed their second of two science classes from orbit, and have carried out an emergency evacuation exercise, moving to the return capsule in a simulation of the core module losing pressure after being hit by space debris.
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The Chinese space authorities aim to finish building the station this year, with two further cargo missions and another two crewed missions planned to make it fully functional. The Shenzhou 15 crew will carry out an in-orbit rotation with their predecessors from Shenzhou 14, meaning the station will for the first time accommodate six astronauts.
By then, Tiangong will be about a quarter of the size of the International Space Station (ISS), built by a coalition of 16 countries. China has been excluded from the ISS, mainly because of US objections.
Tiangong has a designed lifespan of more than 10 years, which can be extended to 15 with maintenance. It is likely to be the only space station operating in near-Earth orbit by the end of the decade, with the 15-year-old ISS showing signs of its age, especially its Russian segment, the Zvezda service module.
