Chinese crew completes unprecedented 9-hour mission outside space station

On Tuesday, Chinese astronauts Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong completed the longest-ever spacewalk, spending nine hours and six minutes working on the exterior of the Tiangong space station, setting a new world record. According to Space.com, the mission surpassed the previous record held by US astronauts since 2001.

The previous record for the longest spacewalk was held by NASA astronauts James Voss and Susan Helms, who spent eight hours and 56 minutes outside the Space Shuttle Discovery on March 12, 2001, as reported by Süddeutsche Zeitung.

During the spacewalk, Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong installed a debris protection system and inspected and disposed of extravehicular equipment, with support from the space station's robotic arm and ground scientific researchers, according to BBC News.

Both astronauts returned safely to the Wentian experimental module after completing their extravehicular activities, and the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) classified the mission as a success, as reported by Digital Trends.

This achievement marks a significant milestone in China's ambitious space program and highlights its efforts to establish itself as a major player in space exploration, according to Asia Economy.

Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong are members of the Shenzhou-19 mission, which is the 10th spacecraft to visit the Tiangong space station. They arrived at the station on October 29, 2024, for a six-month stay, with the crew scheduled to return to Earth in late April to early May 2025, as noted by Interesting Engineering.

The Tiangong space station is designed to be modular, consisting of a central core module called Tianhe, which reached orbit in April 2021, and two laboratory modules, Wentian and Mengtian, launched in 2022, as reported by Exclsior.

The astronauts conducted the spacewalk wearing second-generation "Feitian" extravehicular activity suits, which provide life support, environmental protection, and communication capabilities, and are designed to support extended periods of extravehicular activity, according to BBC News.

Feitian suits have a service life of three years and can be utilized for a maximum of 15 spacewalks, as stated by Interesting Engineering.

This was the second spacewalk for Cai Xuzhe, who had previously succeeded in a 5.5-hour spacewalk in November 2022 as a member of the Shenzhou-14 crew, according to Asia Economy.

In the Shenzhou-19 mission, Song Lingdong, a former fighter pilot, made history as the first Chinese astronaut born in the 1990s to conduct a spacewalk, as reported by Exclsior.

China began conducting spacewalks in September 2008 with the Shenzhou-7 mission, marking a significant milestone in its space exploration efforts. The first Chinese spacewalk lasted only 20 minutes, performed by Zhai Zhigang during the Shenzhou-7 mission, according to Interesting Engineering.

China aspires to become the second country, after the United States, to land humans on the Moon, with a mission scheduled for 2030, as noted by CNN.

In Washington, many see China's space ambitions as a real threat, especially as China continues to set new records and aims to take a leading role in space exploration, according to Focus Online.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson believes that the United States and China are "actually in a race" to return to the Moon. He stated that Beijing wants to assert territorial claims on the Moon, as reported by BBC News.

The Pentagon expresses concern that space technologies may be used for military purposes. At a space symposium held in April 2024, U.S. Space Command Chief General Stephen Whiting stated that China and Russia are investing in space "at a pace that takes your breath away," according to BBC News. He said that since 2018, China has tripled the number of reconnaissance, observation, and reconnaissance satellites in orbit.

China has made strides in space exploration, including landing a spacecraft on Mars in 2021 and deploying the "Zhurong" rover on the surface of the Red Planet, becoming the third country to do so after the United States and the former Soviet Union, as reported by BBC News.

Earlier this year, China achieved the first-ever return of lunar samples from the far side of the Moon.

Looking ahead, China plans to establish a research station on the Moon by 2035. According to GreekReporter.com, egg-shaped igloos will be constructed on the lunar surface, utilizing Moon dust bricks that will be tested aboard the Tiangong space station.

In addition to its lunar ambitions, China is aiming further with three ambitious missions in planetary exploration. The Tianwen-2 mission aims to sample near-Earth asteroids and probe main-belt comets. The Tianwen-3 mission is a Mars sample return mission, aiming to collect Martian samples and bring them back to Earth. The Tianwen-4 mission will explore the Jupiter system, as reported by GreekReporter.com.

The Tiangong space station orbits the Earth at an altitude of 340 to 450 kilometers, approximately the same altitude as the International Space Station (ISS), according to Interesting Engineering.

China does not participate in the ISS due to military ties of its space program and has refused to collaborate with ISS members, including the U.S., Russia, Europe, and Japan, as stated by Digital Trends.

NASA hopes to replace the ISS with commercial space stations after its decommissioning. NASA recently shared its strategy for maintaining human presence in space after the deorbiting of the ISS. NASA stated that it aims to have a "diversity of providers operating on a regular cadence" to ensure access to low-Earth orbit, as reported by Digital Trends.

This article was written in collaboration with generative AI company Alchemiq