Three Chinese astronauts returned this Friday (17) to Earth after a record period of three months aboard the country’s space station, which is under construction.
The mission represented a milestone for the Asian country in its ambitious space conquest program.
With the aid of parachutes, the capsule landed this Friday at 1:34 pm (2:34 am EDT) in the Gobi Desert, northwest of the country, according to the Chinese space agency (CMSA).
The three men took off on June 17 from the Jiuquan launch center near Friday’s landing point. The Shenzhou-12 mission was the country’s longest in space.
“It’s great to be back,” 45-year-old astronaut Tang Hongbo told state television channel CCTV shortly after stepping out of the capsule.
“Dad, Mom, I’m back! I’m in good health and in a good mood,” added Hongbo, while older crewmates, Nie Haisheng and Liu Boming, looked a little more tired.
Huang Weifen, a senior space program official, said the three were quarantined.
“The measure was taken to protect them, not because of covid-19, but because their immunity is lessened by their long stay in space,” Weifen said.
The CMSA celebrated the “complete success” of the mission, which represents a new stage in China’s ambitious space program, which already has probes on the Moon and Mars and plans to send astronauts to the Moon by 2030.
“The Shenzhou-12 mission achieved the goal of activating the new station and putting it into operation,” Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in the United States, told AFP.
“This paves the way for future regular missions to the station. It was very important and really critical to achieve success at the beginning,” said Chen Lan, an analyst at GoTaikonauts.com who specializes in the Chinese space program.
CCTV showed the three men’s return live, complete with images from a camera aboard the capsule that showed the flight at great speed over the desert.
Aboard Tianhe (“Heavenly Harmony”), the only one of the three space station modules already in space, astronauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo performed several tasks.
The crew made several space excursions, maintenance operations and also installed equipment to make the space station operational, whose first element was launched in April.
Once completed, the Tiangong station (“Heavenly Palace” in Portuguese) will be similar in size to the former Soviet Mir station (1986-2001) and should have a useful life of at least ten years, according to the Chinese space agency.
China’s ambition to build a station was fueled by the United States’ refusal to give the country access to the International Space Station (ISS), a collaboration between the US, Russia, Canada, Europe and Japan.
Shenzhou-12 is the first Chinese mission in nearly five years and a matter of prestige for the Communist Party, which celebrates its centenary this year.
But are the Chinese on the same level as the Americans?
“Although China is ahead of Europe in terms of human spaceflight, there are still gaps regarding the United States and these will take more than a decade, or even longer, to be overcome”, says Chen Lan.
He points out the US advantage in technology, and even cost savings, with the current use of reusable launchers to get to the ISS.
“But the main American advance lies in experience,” McDowell points out.
“Chinese astronauts, for example, made (during this mission) two space exits. It is far from the hundreds that happen with the ISS. This number makes the difference,” says Chen Lan.
The Shenzhou-12 mission was the third of 11 that will be needed to build the space station between 2021 and 2022.
The next launch, of the Tianzhou-3 spacecraft, which will carry only equipment, will take place in the next few days, officials said. Specialist sites say it will take place on Monday.
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