{"id":312481,"date":"2025-11-25T09:28:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T09:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/312481\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T09:28:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T09:28:08","slug":"china-launches-spacecraft-to-bring-3-stranded-astronauts-back-from-space-station-sometime-next-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/312481\/","title":{"rendered":"China launches spacecraft to bring 3 stranded astronauts back from space station sometime next year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beijing \u2014 China launched the Shenzhou 22 spacecraft on Tuesday to help bring back a team of astronauts after a damaged spacecraft left them temporarily stranded on China’s space station.<\/p>\n

The Shenzhou 22 will be used sometime in 2026 by the three astronauts who docked on the Tiangong space station on Nov. 1.<\/p>\n

\"China<\/p>\n

The Long March-2F Y22 carrier rocket, carrying the Shenzhou-22 spaceship, blasts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Nov. 25, 2025 in northwest China.\u00a0<\/p>\n

VCG \/ VCG via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, another group of Chinese astronauts from the Shenzhou 20 mission faced a nine-day delay in their return to Earth after their craft’s window was damaged. They eventually returned using the Shenzhou 21 spacecraft, which had just carried the replacement crew to Tiangong<\/a>. <\/p>\n

While the three-person crew landed safely on Earth, three of their fellow astronauts on the replacement crew were temporarily left without a guaranteed way to return in case of an emergency. <\/p>\n

The Shenzhou 20 spacecraft – the damaged one, which for now remains in space – will be brought down to Earth later and assessed, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The space program determined it didn’t meet safety standards for transporting the astronauts. <\/p>\n

Chinese astronauts have been carrying out missions to the Tiangong space station in recent years as part of Beijing’s rapidly progressing space program, initially building out the station module-by-module. <\/p>\n

China developed Tiangong after the country was excluded from the International Space Station over U.S. national security concerns, since China’s space program is controlled by its military. <\/p>\n

Tiangong, which means “Heavenly Palace,” hosted its first crew in 2021. It is smaller than the International Space Station, which has been operating for 25 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beijing \u2014 China launched the Shenzhou 22 spacecraft on Tuesday to help bring back a team of astronauts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[144,79,193],"class_list":["post-312481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-china","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}