Home » First “space walk” of Chinese astrunauts outside the new Tiangong orbital station

First “space walk” of Chinese astrunauts outside the new Tiangong orbital station

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BEIJING. Two Chinese astronauts made the first “space walk” out of China’s new orbital station, Tiangong. This was announced by CMS, the Chinese agency that deals with manned space missions, while Beijing is pulling straight ahead with its extraterrestrial ambitions. Today is only the second time that Chinese astronauts have performed extravehicular activities. The first “walk” of the People’s Republic was 13 years ago. Astronaut Liu Boming left the Tianhe module this morning, while colleague Tang Hongbo joined soon after to test state-of-the-art spacesuits – which allow them to spend up to eight hours outside the module – to install equipment that will be used in the future missions and perform other technical tasks. The third crew member, Commander Nie Haisheng, remained inside to monitor operations.


China launched the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft on June 17, with the three taikonauts on board to fine-tune the Tiangong, which the Asian country expects to have ready by 2022. Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo – all and three military pilots – will remain in orbit for three months on the Tianhe module, which in turn is connected to the Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft, which contains supplies, suits, equipment and fuel, among other materials.

This is the longest mission ever organized by the Chinese Space Agency (CNSA). The Tiangong station will orbit the Earth at an altitude of between 340 and 450 kilometers, and is designed to last around 10 years, although some experts are confident that, with proper maintenance, it will last more than 15 years. In a few years, Tiangong is likely to become the only space station in the world if the International Space Station (ISS) is decommissioned as planned.

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The Chinese space program has recently achieved several successes: in addition to the mission with which it brought a probe and a rover to Mars that is exploring the surface in search of signs of life, last year the People’s Republic reported home, thanks to the Chang’e 5 probe, the first samples from the lunar surface in 44 years.

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