Three Chinese astronauts have returned to Earth after a six-month mission on the Chinese space station.
They flew into space on June 5 and oversaw the final stages of construction of the Tiangong Space Station, which was completed in November.
The crew landed on the Shenzhou 14 spacecraft in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Sunday.
China’s space agency described the mission as a “complete success.”
In an audio broadcast by state broadcaster CCTV, commander Cheng Dong and his teammates Liu Yang and Tsai Xu Zhe said they felt comfortable after landing.
Site personnel carried the crew out of the exit capsule, which landed just after 8:00 p.m. local time, about nine hours after undocking from the space station.
Yang, China’s first female astronaut, said she had unforgettable memories of the space station and was “looking forward to returning to her homeland,” state news agency Xinhua reported.
In space, three astronauts oversaw the arrival of Tiangong’s second and third modules, and conducted three spacewalks to inspect and test the new facility.
A new crew of three Chinese astronauts arrived at the space station on Wednesday for the first in-orbit crew handover.
The new crew took off aboard the Shenzhou 15 spacecraft from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert of northwestern China.
You will live at the station for six months. It will be China’s second permanent space station, following the NASA-led International Space Station, which was ousted in 2011.
It is the latest of the 11 missions required to assemble the station, which will operate for about 10 years and will conduct near-zero gravity experiments.
The new crew will focus on installing equipment and facilities around the space station, according to a spokesperson for the Chinese Manned Space Administration.
It is the third country in history to send cosmonauts into space and build a space station, after the USSR and the United States.
The Tiangong Space Station or “Tiangong” is China’s new permanent space station. China has previously launched two of his temporary experimental space stations named Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2.
In Tiangu’s next ten years of operation, China plans to launch two manned missions to the space station each year.
China has begun the selection process of astronauts for future missions for applicants from previously excluded “special administrative regions” of Macau and Hong Kong.
China put its first satellite into orbit in 1970, but suffered massive disruption during the Cultural Revolution.
Over the past decade, China has launched more than 200 missiles.
An unmanned mission called Chang’e 5 has already been sent to the Moon to collect and bring back rock samples. It put the Chinese flag on the moon – it was purposely larger than the previous US flag.
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