BEIJING: Three Chinese astronauts safely returned to Earth on Sunday after six months aboard the Tiangong space station, state media quoted the country’s space agency.
The team touched down at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia at 8:09pm Beijing time, Xinhua news agency said, citing the China Manned Space Agency. said they were in good health, the report said.
The three Shenzhou-14 astronauts — mission commander Chen Dong, China’s first woman astronaut Liu Yang and teammate Cai Xuzhe — had been tasked with overseeing the final stages of construction of the space station.
The team has handed the baton to the Shenzhou-15 crew — China’s first crew handover in orbit.
China has been excluded from the International Space Station since 2011, when the US banned Nasa from engaging with the country.
Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2022
