The journey home for a trio of Chinese astronauts, Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui, and Wang Jie, who have been soaring on China's Tiangong space station for the past six months, has been unexpectedly put on hold. The return mission, which was initially set to transport them back to Earth from their orbiting base, has been indefinitely delayed due to suspected damage on their Shenzhou-20 spacecraft caused by space debris, as reported by CNN.
In a statement released on November 5th, the country's National Space Administration shared that "impact analysis and risk assessment are currently underway." The three astronauts embarked from China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in April, and their replacements docked at Tiangong on October 31st, with a symbolic handover ceremony broadcast live on state-owned CCTV.
"We are on the cusp of returning to Earth," Chen Dong said at the time, as quoted by CNN, "and now I am passing on the hatch key that symbolizes the right to maintain operations on this Chinese space station to you."
This postponement follows the seven-month hiatus that NASA astronauts Sunita "Suni" Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore experienced after their extended stay on the International Space Station. The duo were scheduled to return home in June 2024 following an eight-day expedition, but ultimately spent nearly 300 days in space due to malfunctions on their Boeing vehicle, including a helium leak that began shortly after their launch.
"My first thought was, 'We've just got to pivot,'" Williams shared in a March interview with Fox News. "I was like, 'Let's make the best of it.'" Wilmore echoed this sentiment, reflecting on his own mission gone awry. "What does our nation need out of me right now?" he recalled asking himself. "Did I think about not being there for my daughter's high school year? Of course. But we've trained them to be resilient, my daughters and my family."
Looking back, Wilmore shared that the experience taught him that nothing is a "given" in the vast universe. "We don't know what's going to happen," he explained. "We might not be back in eight days or whatever the plan was. Focus on that, focus on the mission."
