The CNSA agency prepared and launched a Shenzhou shuttle in a few days to ensure the return of the Tiangong station crew without depriving it of an emergency vehicle. A few months ago, the US made NASA astronauts wait months. And we are thinking of an international space rescue service.
The three Chinese taiconauts stranded in orbit will not remain in space for much longer. The word taiconaut is the most correct to define the astronauts of the People’s Republic, just as cosmonauts best represents the Russian ones. Well, after that Chinese Tiangong space station was damaged by space debris, a Long March 2F/G rocket took off yesterday at noon from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centerin northwestern China. The carrier carried the spacecraft into space Shenzhou 22 to the space station for what is effectively a rescue mission. Normally Shenzhou shuttle missions carry three people to Tiangong, where they stay for periods of six months, but this one is unmanned precisely because it will serve as a means of transport for the three residents of the orbiting outpost. The three on board had arrived with mission 21 on Halloween night, but the spacecraft left on November 14 to bring their predecessors home.
The failure of the Shenzhou 20
The Shenzhou 20 astronauts were scheduled to leave Tiangong on November 5but preflight inspections had revealed a crack in the spacecraft’s window, a condition apparently caused by impact with space debris. The specialists ofChinese space agency CNSA they then delayed the crew’s departure to analyze the problem, ultimately deeming that Shenzhou 20 was not entirely safe for personnel to return to Earth. So, in the last ten days, the taiconauts of the Shenzhou 21 found themselves in a precarious situation: if the Tiangong orbiting station had suffered an emergency, without the re-entry spacecraft, the men on board would not have been able to evacuate it in any way.
The scheduled crew change
This is the reason for the operation of the last few hours, and since the Shenzhou 22 is docked at the Tiangong after a flight of approximately five hours from launch, the scheduled crew change will finally be able to take place with the new taiconauts who will remain on board until the arrival of the Shenzhou 23, whose launch is scheduled for April 2026. In these hours the Shenzhou 20 capsule will have to leave before the arrival of the “23” to free one of the docking stations. Chinese space officials have said the damaged spacecraft will remain in orbit for a time to host some experiments, but have not yet announced a timeline for its departure.
Historical precedents
It is not the first time that the crew of a space station has been stuck in orbit: after some rescues occurred in the 1980s to the Soyuz spacecraft and Skylabmore recently, in June 2024, Boeing’s Starliner capsule it had experienced problems shortly after its launch towards the International Space Station (ISS), during its first manned flight, which should have lasted only about ten days. NASA decided to bring the unmanned vehicle home in September of that year, which occurred without incident. The two astronauts of the Starliner, Suni Williams And Butch Wilmoreboth from NASA, had therefore remained on the ISS for more than nine months, but never completely blocked, since at least one rescue craft attached to the Station was always available during their stay. The two finally returned home aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule last March.
The new era of space rescue
However, these events are demonstrating some historical changes in human presence in space. The first: China is demonstrating cutting-edge technological readinessmanaging to execute a launch in just a few days. The second: changes the way we think about space recoveries and both in the USA, as well as in Russia, India and China, they are already thinking about a sort of space rescue service that can promptly help any crew in difficulty, regardless of the nation it represents.
