Three Chinese Astronauts Successfully Return Home After Building the Tiangong Station

JAKARTA - After undergoing a six-month mission to complete the construction of the Tiangong space station, three Chinese astronauts managed to return to Earth yesterday.

Boarding a capsule, the three astronauts including commander Chen Dong, astronauts Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe landed at the landing site in the Gobi Desert in northern China at around 12:10 pm local time.

Before returning to Earth, the three astronauts were in Tiangong with three colleagues who arrived last Wednesday on the Shenzhou-15 mission for a six-month stay as well.

It is known that Chen, Liu, and Cai have been part of the Shenzhou-14 mission, which was launched last June. This event is not without history, it marked the first time China had six astronauts in space at the same time and in Tiangong.

The astronauts were taken out of the capsule by medics about 40 minutes after landing. They were all smiling and looked to be in good shape, waving happily to the workers at the landing site.

“I am very fortunate to have witnessed the completion of the basic structure of the Chinese space station after six busy and fulfilling months in space. Like a meteor, we hug back from mother earth", Chen said as quoted by Sky News on Monday, December 5.

During their stay at Tiangong, the astronauts supervised five encounters and docking with various spacecraft, including one that carried a third of the station's three modules. The third and final module docked with the lunar station.

They also conducted various experiments, made three spacewalks, broadcast science lectures live from the station, and conducted various experiments.

For information, China built its own station after being removed from the International Space Station (ISS), largely over US objections to China's space program's close ties to the People's Liberation Army, the military wing of the ruling Communist Party.

Now, the Tiangong is part of China's official plan for a permanent human presence in orbit and a significant milestone in the country's three-decade-long manned space program, which was first approved in 1992.

Weighing in at around 66 tons, it could be the only space station still in operation if the ISS retires around the end of the decade as expected.