Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie were supposed to return to Earth on the Shenzhou manned spacecraft after six months in orbit, but the return was postponed indefinitely.
Now they plan to check the condition of the spacecraft. CNN notes that the CMSA did not provide details about the nature of the damage or the time it might take to complete the inspection.
On November 1, the Shenzhou-21 mission arrived at Tiangong, consisting of three new crew members of the orbital station. They had to work together for five days to complete the planned tasks and complete the transfer of work, CGTN wrote.
CNN noticed that the spaceship on which the Chinese were going to return to Earth (and on which their replacement arrived) was a new model.
China changes the Tiangong crew every six months; this orbital station helped the Chinese set a new world record (previously held by the United States) for the duration of a spacewalk – nine hours.
In 2026, China plans to send a foreigner, an astronaut from Pakistan, to Tiangong for the first time.
Context
The Chinese station became the third multi-module manned station in Earth orbit after Mir (no longer existing) and the International Space Station.
Tiangong-1 was launched in September 2011, and Tiangong-2 station in September 2016. A few months earlier, contact with Tiangong-1 was lost; in April 2018, the station entered the Earth's atmosphere, its components mostly burned up over the Pacific Ocean. The second Chinese manned station completed its work in July 2019 and was deorbited.
“Tiangong-3” China began construction in April 2021 with the launch of the station's base module, Tianhe.
