Three Chinese astronauts have returned to Earth after a record stay in space. The capsule containing astronaut Wang Yaping and her colleagues Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu arrived in the Gobi Desert in northwest China on Saturday morning (local time). The landing was broadcast live on Chinese state television.
The astronauts, as Chinese astronauts are called, spent six months aboard the core unit of the Tiangong space station that Beijing is building. Shenzhou-13’s crew has been in space longer than all the other Chinese space travelers before them.
During their time in space, the astronauts conducted two spacewalks, conducted a series of experiments and prepared for the further expansion of the space station. Altogether, the return trip from the space station, which is flying at an altitude of 400 kilometers above Earth, took just over nine hours.
The astronauts, as Chinese astronauts are called, spent six months aboard the core unit of the Tiangong space station that Beijing is building. Shenzhou-13’s crew has been in space longer than all the other Chinese space travelers before them. During their time in space, the astronauts conducted two spacewalks, conducted a series of experiments and prepared for the further expansion of the space station. Altogether, the return trip from the space station, which is flying at an altitude of 400 kilometers above Earth, took just over nine hours.
