At 20:09 local time on December 4th, the Shenzhou 14 manned spacecraft successfully landed at the Dongfeng Landing Field in western Inner Mongolia, and the three astronauts successfully exited the cabin. During the six months in orbit, the flight crew completed the preliminary construction of China's Tiangong space station, and in the past 5 days, it conducted the first in-orbit handover with the Shenzhou 15 crew.
Chen Dong, Liu Yang, and Cai Xuzhe have left the reentry capsule and headed to the base in the vehicle of the search and rescue team. The Shenzhou 14 spacecraft they were on left the space station at noon on December 4, Beijing time, and arrived at the landing site after a flight of about 9 hours.
The crew of Shenzhou 14 flew into space in early June this year and entered the Tiangong space station, and welcomed two experimental modules, Wentian and Mengtian, in July and October of this year, thereby expanding the Chinese space station to a three-cabin structure. On November 30th, Shenzhou 15 docked with the Chinese space station, and a total of six astronauts carried out handover work with Shenzhou 14 in the next few days. This is also the first handover work in space in the history of China's spaceflight.
In addition, the three astronauts completed three extravehicular walks and conducted numerous scientific experiments during the six-month period. With the return of Shenzhou 14 and the crew of Shenzhou 15 fully taking over the work of the space station, it marks the transition of China's space station from the construction stage to the application stage.
According to the plan, the Chinese space station will operate in orbit for 10 to 15 years, and there is a plan to further expand it to a six-cabin structure in the long run. If the International Space Station is decommissioned before 2030, "Tiangong" is likely to become the only space station in low-Earth orbit. However, the United States and other countries are currently planning to deploy a space station in lunar orbit, which will not be implemented before 2025.
In addition to the space station project, China's manned spaceflight also plans to put into use a new generation of reusable manned spacecraft by 2025 to replace the current "Shenzhou" series. In addition, China also plans to realize a manned moon landing around 2030.
(Information provided by Deutsche Welle Chinese website)