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Shenzhou-15 'dream crew' safely returns to Earth

Global Times

By Deng Xiaoci Published: Jun 04, 2023 06:37 AM

Having spent six months living and working in the China Space Station, setting a new record for China's manned space program with four spacewalks by a single crew, the three Shenzhou-15 taikonauts, known as the "dream crew", safely returned to the Dongfeng landing site in the Gobi Desert, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Sunday.

At around 6:37 am Sunday, the return capsule of the Shenzhou-15 manned spacecraft carrying mission commander Fei Junlong and his fellow crewmembers Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu, conducted a successful touchdown at the Dongfeng landing site. Medical personnel confirmed that the three were in good health, marking a complete success of the return mission, the Global Times has learned from the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) on Sunday.

The Shenzhou-15 manned spaceship separated from the country's space station combination at 9:29 pm Saturday (Beijing Time). Before their departure, the Shenzhou-15 crew has handed over the key to the China Space Station to the Shenzhou-16 crew in orbit on Friday. The landing site and other systems involved have been ready to welcome the taikonauts home, the CMSA said earlier.

Despite being the oldest crew in terms of the average age at 53, the trio have delivered multiple firsts and set several records in the country's manned space history during their 187-day-stay in orbit.

They were given the endearing nickname of "dream crew" by Chinese netizens based on their decades-long preparation for the spaceflight missions. Zhang waited and persevered for 12 years, Fei 17 years and Deng 24 years.

Deng spent 24 years training and preparing before his first space trip and was also acting as the back-up taikonaut for four earlier Shenzhou missions. Deng was the only member of China's first batch of astronauts who had not visited space yet still in active service before the Shenzhou-15 mission.

On April 15, the Shenzhou-15 crew executed their fourth extravehicular activity, known as a spacewalking mission, which set a new record with most space walking missions executed by a single crew.

Moreover, the Shenzhou-15 trio has achieved multiple payload tasks outside the space station cabin, human factors engineering technology research, 28 aerospace medical experiments, and 38 space science trials covering life ecology, material science and fluid mechanics among others, through which they have obtained valuable experimental data.

In fact, the Shenzhou-15 crew has already opened a new chapter for the China Space Station with their arrival at Tiangong space station on November 30, 2022, as it not only marked the beginning of the first direct work hand-over between two manned spaceflight crews but also that the China Space Station would henceforth be permanently inhabited for at least a decade, mission insiders confirmed when speaking with the Global Times.

Furthermore, the Shenzhou-15 mission is the last step in the construction phase of the China Space Station and with the arrival of the Shenzhou-15 spaceship, the space station has expanded to its largest configuration of three modules and three spaceships, with a total mass of nearly 100 tons.

It was during the Shenzhou-15 mission that the China Space Station became operational as of the end of 2022 and entered a new application and development phase.

The outgoing Shenzhou-15 on May 30 welcomed the Shenzhou-16 crew led by mission commander and veteran taikonaut Jing Haipeng, and the China Space Station staged its first "heavenly reunion" of six taikonauts at the application and development stage on May 30.

After spending around four days together, the Shenzhou-15 crew handed over the key to the China Space Station to the Shenzhou-16 taikonauts on Friday.

It will take around six months for those who serve on long-term spaceflight missions to see a return to their normal physical condition, before they resume training and participate in another round of space flight candidate selection, the Global Times learned from the CMSA.

It will take about one to one and a half years for these candidates to be able to execute another space mission, the CMSA added.