Beijing:
The Chinese spacecraft, the Shenzhou-14, carrying three astronauts who lived in orbit at the space station for six months, safely landed at the Dongfeng landing site in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region on Sunday, official media reported here.
Earlier, the Shenzhou-14 with astronauts Chen Dong, Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe detached from the space station.
The three astronauts lived and worked in the space station complex for 183 days.
They were replaced by three more astronauts who were flown to the space station under construction on November 29 by the Shenzhou-15 spaceship.
The astronauts had completed various work, such as completing the orbital rotation with the Shenzhou-15 crew, setting the status of the space station complex, sorting and downloading experiment data, and clearing and transferring supplies kept in orbit, with support from sci-tech personnel on the ground, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said.
The three Shenzhou-14 astronauts were sent to the space station on June 5. They have completed multiple tasks over the past few months, including overseeing five rendezvous-and-dockings, performing three extravehicular activities, delivering a live science lecture and leading a number of sci-tech experiments, it reported. state-run news agency Xinhua.
China plans to complete the space station by the end of this year amid growing competition with the United States.
The Shenzhou-15 spaceship had three astronauts on board: Fei Junlong, Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu.
During their six-month mission, the crew of the Shenzhou-15 will conduct long-term tests on the Chinese space station in its three-module configuration, said Ji Qiming, assistant to the director of the CMSA.
This will be the last flight mission in the construction phase of the Chinese space station, official media reported. The launch was performed with a Long March-2F launch vehicle.
Once completed, China will be the only country to own a space station.
Russia’s International Space Station (ISS) is a collaborative project of several countries.
China Space Station (CSS) is also expected to be a competitor to the Russian-built ISS.
Observers say the CSS may become the only space station to remain in orbit when the ISS retires in the next few years.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
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