Shenzhou-17 crew completes first spacewalk

(Photo by Han Qiang/Xinhua)

BEIJING, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) — Shenzhou-17 crew members aboard China’s orbital space station completed their first spacewalk at 9:35 p.m. (Beijing time) Thursday, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie and Jiang Xinlin worked seven and a half hours to complete assigned tasks, such as testing the repair of the solar wing of the Tianhe core module, with the help of a ground crew and the space station’s robotic arm.

Since then, Tang Hongbo and Tang Shengjie had safely returned to Wentian’s laboratory unit.

This was the second time that Tang Hongbo, the first Chinese astronaut to return to the space station for a second mission, had performed a spacewalk. Tang Xingjie became the country’s youngest astronaut to conduct an extravehicular mission.

In the future, the Shenzhou-17 crew will complete a large number of planned space science experiments, technical tests, spacewalks and installation of extravehicular payloads.

They have performed numerous missions since entering the orbital complex on October 26, including crew rotation with Shenzhou-16 astronauts, space station platform maintenance, life and health support, and inspections and testing of extravehicular spacesuits and equipment on the Tianzhou-16 cargo spacecraft. 6. .

They also conducted robotic arm operations drills, emergency life-saving drills, medical rescue drills, and full-system stress emergency drills.