Two astronauts on board China's Tiangong space station successfully completed a six-hour spacewalk Friday, the national human spaceflight agency said.

Astronauts Chen Dong and Liu Yang returned to their cabin module in the early hours of Friday, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said, declaring the first spacewalk of the six-month Shenzhou-14 mission a "complete success".

China's heavily promoted space programme has already seen the nation land a rover on Mars and send probes to the Moon.

State media images showed the pair opening the hatch of the module and using a robotic arm to manoeuvre equipment with the rotating earth in the background.

"Hello, everyone. I'm out of the module. I'm feeling good," Chen, a former military pilot, said in a video.

The pair completed a series of tasks including installing external parts to the module and testing its functions, while the remaining astronaut Cai Xuzhe coordinated from inside the cabin, official news agency Xinhua reported.

China launched the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft on June 5, sending the three astronauts to complete the construction of Tiangong.

The space station, whose name means "heavenly palace", is expected to become fully operational by the end of the year.

Chen, Liu and Cai are the second crew to spend six months aboard Tiangong after the last one returned to earth in April following 183 days on the space station.

Tiangong's core module entered orbit early last year and is expected to operate for at least a decade.

The completed station will be similar to the Soviet Mir station that orbited Earth from the 1980s until 2001.

Related Links
The Chinese Space Program - News, Policy and Technology
China News from SinoDaily.com

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

Plant growth in China's space lab in good condition
Beijing (XNA) Aug 31, 2022
The seeds of two plants in China's Wentian lab module have germinated and are now in good condition, according to a briefing on the progress of plant culture experiments in the country's space station on Monday. Seed samples of the two plants, Arabidopsis and rice, were installed in the life ecology experiment cabinet of the lab module, which went into space in July. The space growth experiments were launched on July 29 with ground instructions. The Arabidopsis seedlings have grown several l ... read more