Three Chinese astronauts are stranded in orbit aboard the Tiangong space station because their own Shenzhou-21 spacecraft was used for an emergency return to Earth for the previous crew, whose capsule was damaged by suspected space debris. This is reported by Newsweek, writes UNN.
Details
The current crew, who are on a six-month Shenzhou-21 mission, are left without a vehicle in case of an emergency.
The incident occurred after the return of the previous group, the Shenzhou-20 mission, was delayed by more than a week. The astronauts were supposed to return on November 5, but were delayed by nine days due to the discovery of tiny cracks in the window of their Shenzhou-20 capsule, which were likely caused by space debris impact.
Instead of taking risks, the Shenzhou-20 crew was returned to Earth on Friday aboard the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft, which had just delivered a new crew to the station. This forced replacement left the new crew without their own return capsule.
The China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) announced that the next spacecraft, Shenzhou-22, which is to be a replacement, "will be launched at an appropriate time in the future," but did not specify an exact date.
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