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Chinese astronauts finally reveal why spacecraft left them \u2018stranded\u2019 for 437 days in space<\/p>\n Chinese astronauts finally reveal why spacecraft left them \u2018stranded\u2019 for 437 days in space<\/p>\n
Crew members of China’s Shenzhou-20 mission recently detailed their reactions upon finding cracks in their spacecraft’s viewport during the nation’s first spaceflight emergency.<\/p>\n
Taikonauts from the fated Shenzhou-20 mission have described what happened when they discovered cracks on their spacecraft as they prepared to depart China’s Tiangong space station last year.<\/p>\n
Chinese astronauts revealed the major reason behind the mishap:<\/p>\n
Astronauts have finally described what happened when they were nearly stranded in space last year after a suspected piece of space junk struck their return capsule.<\/p>\n
Chinese astronauts revealed that several structural cracks had extended completely through components of their spacecraft, raising safety concerns during the mission.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Engineers monitored the damage closely, implemented precautionary measures, and ensured the crew\u2019s safe return despite the unexpected technical challenges.<\/p>\n
\tChinese astronauts reveal new details about spacecraft that ‘stranded’ them in space for 437 days<\/p>\n
New Details:<\/p>\n
During a routine check, the astronauts spotted something unusual, beginning what has since been described as China’s first spaceflight emergency.<\/p>\n
Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie, the crew of the ill-fated Shenzhou-20 mission, were preparing to leave China’s Tiangong space station and return to Earth on November 5, 2025. <\/p>\n
Commander Chen Dong was carrying out final checks on the return capsule when he noticed a triangular mark in the spacecraft’s viewpoint window, according to a detailed interview with the crew by Chinese state media, reported by Live Science and Space.<\/p>\n
Chen said in the interview, aired by China Central Television CCTV, “My first thought was whether a small leaf had somehow stuck to the outside of the window.” <\/p>\n
“But then I quickly realized that couldn’t happen because we were in space. How could there possibly be a fallen leaf there?”<\/p>\n
Chen determined that the leaf-shaped mark was the result of cracks in the window, some of which he said “had penetrated through.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
His crew then worked with the Shenzhou-21 relief crew and ground teams on Earth to check and confirm the condition of the window. <\/p>\n
The taikonauts, or Chinese astronauts, have previously described taking a methodical approach to what could have been a perilous event.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Chinese astronauts left \u2018stranded\u2019 on Tiangong space station reveal details of damaged spacecraft<\/p>\n
Longest time in space:<\/p>\n
The taikonauts arrived at the Tiangong, Mandarin for “heavenly palace,” space station on April 24, 2025.<\/p>\n
Their original departure date of Nov. 5 was pushed back after the crack was discovered, but they were able to travel home 9 days later in the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft that had delivered their relief crew.<\/p>\n
Moreover, the three taikonauts safely touched down in northern China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Nov. 14. <\/p>\n
The crew spent 204 days in orbit, which was a record for a taikonaut crew, though far from the record for the longest time humans have spent in space\u2014437 days.<\/p>\n
Astronauts revealed worst-case scenarios:<\/p>\n
They informed that the quantity of space junk in Earth’s orbit is increasing, which could create worse situations in the future.<\/p>\n
The junk, which includes things like rocket boosters and other discarded space travel objects, has the potential to collide with uncrewed and crewed spacecraft and thus puts astronauts at risk. <\/p>\n
Various methods have been proposed to deal with the growing space debris problem, including the development of sci-fi-inspired tractor beams and junk-capturing spacecraft.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But so far, no potential solutions are ready to be deployed at scale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese astronauts finally reveal why spacecraft left them \u2018stranded\u2019 for 437 days in space Crew members of China’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-311092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}