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Asia

Chinese astronauts land on Earth after China's longest crewed space mission

16 April 2022 07:29 (UTC +04:00)

Three Chinese astronauts returned to earth on Saturday after 183 days in space, state television reported, completing the country's longest crewed space mission to date, APA reports citing Reuters.

The astronauts landed nine hours after they left a key module of China's first space station.

While in orbit, the Shenzhou-13 mission astronauts took manual control in the Tianhe living quarters module for what state media called a "docking experiment" with the Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft.

Following their launch in October, the astronauts - Zhai Zhigang, Ye Guangfu and a female crew member Wang Yaping - spent 183 days in space, completing the fifth of 11 missions needed to finish the space station by the end of the year.

Shenzhou-13 was the second of four planned crewed missions to complete construction of the space station, which began last April. Shenzhou-12 returned to Earth in September.