BEIJING, Dec 1 China will return its Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft to Earth without astronauts on board so specialists can conduct a detailed assessment of the damage it suffered, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Monday.
The spacecraft had been scheduled to bring its crew home on November 5 following a six-month mission aboard the permanently staffed Tiangong space station. However, the return was postponed after the crew detected a crack in the return capsules window shortly before departure an unprecedented situation in Chinas human spaceflight history.
Nine days later, the astronauts were brought back to Earth using another spacecraft, temporarily leaving Tiangongs remaining three residents without an operational return vehicle. Chinas aerospace teams then worked around the clock to carry out an emergency launch on November 25, just 20 days after the delay was announced, to restore a safe backup option.
Until Mondays broadcast, the fate of the damaged Shenzhou-20 craft, still docked at the orbiting outpost, had remained uncertain. Ji Qiming, spokesperson for the China Manned Space Agency, confirmed to CCTV that the spacecraft would make an uncrewed journey home, noting that the return flight would allow engineers to collect the most accurate experimental data.
Jia Shijin, a Shenzhou spacecraft designer, disclosed additional information about the small fracture that disrupted Chinas mission schedule. He said initial analysis suggests the impact was caused by a fragment of space debris less than one millimetre in size but moving at extremely high velocity. The resulting crack stretches more than a centimetre.
We cannot examine it directly in orbit, Jia explained. A thorough investigation will be possible once Shenzhou-20 is back on Earth. He added that the mission delay was driven by the worst-case possibility that the crack could expand, risking depressurisation or the intrusion of high-velocity gases conditions that could rapidly overpower life-support systems and endanger the crew.