China\u2019s Shenzhou-20 spacecraft returned to Earth with no astronauts inside \u2013 just metal, heat and a cracked window \u2013 touching down at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia on Monday.<\/p>\n
The hull appeared to be darkened after enduring the intense heat and stress of re-entering the Earth\u2019s atmosphere. But on-site inspections revealed the capsule\u2019s exterior was generally intact and the returned items inside were in good condition, according to Chinese space authorities.<\/p>\n
In an interview with state broadcaster CCTV<\/a> on Monday, Zheng Wei, deputy chief designer of the crewed spacecraft system at the China Academy of Space Technology, said history had been made.<\/p>\n \u201cThe spacecraft\u2019s return was delayed due to unforeseen circumstances, resulting in an actual in-orbit duration of nine months \u2013 a record for China\u2019s crewed missions,\u201d Zheng explained. \u201cConsequently, the operational data accumulated during this extended period is exceptionally precious.\u201d<\/p>\n In November last year, a crack discovered in a window of the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft forced its three Chinese astronauts<\/a> to remain on board the Tiangong space station for nine extra days and eventually borrow their newly arrived colleagues\u2019 ship to return to Earth<\/a>.Zheng said the emergency operation showed there was a need to better understand space debris threats<\/a>, noting that even with low probability, the risk was serious and required better awareness, design and planning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China\u2019s Shenzhou-20 spacecraft returned to Earth with no astronauts inside \u2013 just metal, heat and a cracked window…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[18920,21181,142412,103305,91737,142407,142408,142410,111,139,69,147,102585,83850,91733,91735,142411,392,1023,142409],"class_list":["post-242567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-cast","tag-cctv","tag-china-academy-of-space-technology","tag-chinese-space-station","tag-dongfeng-landing-site","tag-extravehicular-suit-b","tag-jiuquan-satellite-launch-center","tag-long-march-2f-y23","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-shenzhou-19","tag-shenzhou-20","tag-shenzhou-21","tag-shenzhou-22","tag-shenzhou-23","tag-space","tag-space-debris","tag-tianhe-core-module"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}