the taikonauts Chen Dong, Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe they arrived in China on Monday after completing the Shenzen 14 mission of 183 days in space. They fell to Earth on Sunday, coming from the Tiangong space station.
Shenzen 14 was launched on June 5, with the taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) living in the Tianhe core module. The objective was to acclimate the human team for the construction of ships in orbit, as part of the country’s space program.
Tiangong operates at an altitude of between 240 and 450 kilometers above our planet, with a useful life of 10 years, although experts believe that it can easily reach 15 years. Fei Junling, Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu remain at the station, since the end of November with the Shenzen 15 mission.
Chen Dong, Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe helped set up the labs that arrived in Tiangong in July and October this year. They took space walks on September 1 (with Liu Yang becoming the second Chinese woman in history to walk), September 17 and November 17, all successful.
China builds its “heavenly palace” in space, with its taikonauts in Tiangong
The Chinese space plan consists of carrying out 10 operations of similar characteristics to develop the assembly and construction of ships in orbit.
Tiangong, whose name means “heavenly palace”, is expected to be fully operational by 2023. being the third built by the China National Space Administration (CNSA, for its acronym in English).
It is a third generation modular space station, like the Soviet Mir and the International Space Station, put into orbit from separately launched parts.
This type of design method helps reduce costs by shortening the development cycle, as well as increasing reliability.