Chinese astronauts return to Earth after delay caused by damage from space debris

Three Chinese astronauts returned from their nation’s space station Friday after more than a week’s delay because the return capsule they had planned to use was damaged, likely from being hit by space debris.

The team left their Shenzhou-20 spacecraft in orbit and came back using the recently arrived Shenzhou-21, which had ferried a three-person replacement crew to the station, China’s Manned Space Agency said.

The original return plan was scrapped because a window in the Shenzhou-20 capsule had tiny cracks, most likely caused by impact from space debris, the space agency said Friday.

The return capsule deployed a red and white striped parachute as it came down in the late afternoon to a remote site in northern China’s Gobi Desert, about five and a half hours after leaving the space station. The impact sent up a large cloud of dust in the barren landscape.

The astronauts were carried out one by one about 30 minutes later and put into waiting chairs that were then loaded into individual orange trucks that took them away across the flat and scrubby desert.

They had been on a six-month rotation and were originally scheduled to return Nov. 5, four days after the new crew arrived. Their return was delayed for nine days, and their 204-day stay in space was the longest for any astronaut at China’s space station.

It wasn’t clear if the change in spacecraft would affect the timing of future missions to the Tiangong space station, where new crews typically swap in every six months. The space agency said that Shenzhou-22 would be launched but did not specify when.

Millions of pieces of space debris are circling the Earth at speeds faster than a bullet flies. The mostly tiny fragments can come from launches and collisions and pose a risk to satellites, space stations and the astronauts who operate outside them.


(Photo: Xinhua news agency via AP)