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Journalism of Courage
Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft Friday after being stranded on the Chinese space station Tiangong for over a week as debris damage rendered their spacecraft, the Shenzhou-20, unsafe for flight. They said that in the event of an emergency now, China would not have a mechanism to immediately bring down the new crew.
After the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) determined that a window fracture had rendered the Shenzhou-20 ship unsafe, it was abandoned at the space station. Subsequently, Shenzhou-21, which was scheduled to return to Earth in six months, brought home the Shenzhou-20 crew comprising Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui, and Wang Jie.
Tiangong, or “Heavenly Palace”, is China’s permanently manned space station. Two weeks ago, the Shenzhou-21 had carried three astronauts to Tiangong to replace the Shenzhou-20 crew.
With no operational spacecraft to return the Shenzhou-21 crew to Earth in the event of an emergency, Tiangong is currently in a unique position. Wu Fei, 32, the youngest Chinese astronaut to be launched into space, is one of the three people currently on board the Tiangong. The vulnerability of Tiangong and its residents has not yet been discussed by China’s space authority or state media. Instead, on Friday, state broadcaster CCTV concentrated on minute-by-minute accounts of the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft’s voyage to Earth.
The Shenzhou-20 crew’s return “marked the first successful implementation of an alternative return procedure in the country’s space station program history,” according to state news agency Xinhua. It also set a new record for the longest in-orbit stay among Chinese astronaut teams.
Since 2021, three astronauts from China’s Shenzhou missions have travelled to Tiangong for six-month stints. This is the first time a Shenzhou ship has been abandoned in orbit while its crew headed back to Earth.
Before being returned or completely removed, the debris-hit Shenzhou-20 spacecraft must be repaired in orbit. Future missions would be impossible if this is not done, since Tiangong must always have a port available for newly arrived Shenzhou ships to dock.
According to Russian space specialist Marinin, Shenzhou-20 might be undocked from the Tiangong station and deorbited over the Pacific Ocean if there was substantial damage.
On Friday, CMSA announced that the Shenzhou-22 spacecraft will be launched at a suitable period in the future. Shenzhou-22’s early deployment – it was initially planned for launch in April next year – may have been influenced by Russia’s Soyuz programme, the longest operational human spacecraft programme in history. The Soyuz spacecraft serves as the model for Shenzhou ships.
In December 2022, a micrometeoroid particle impacted the radiator of the Soyuz MS-22’s thermal control system while the spacecraft was on board the International Space Station (ISS), a 25-year-old research facility run by the United States and Russia.
Russia’s space agency chose to deploy Soyuz MS-23 to the ISS to bring back the crew of the slightly damaged ship due to the possibility of overheating. Chinese experts would have probably researched the “non-standard situations” encountered by Russian crews, according to Igor Marinin, a member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics.
