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In a landmark achievement for China's space program, astronauts Ye Guangfu and Li Guangsu of the Shenzhou 18 mission set a new national record by spending 8.5 hours working outside the Tiangong space station on May 28. This impressive feat surpasses all previous Chinese spacewalks, showcasing the country's growing prowess in space exploration.
Highlights:
1.Record-Breaking Spacewalk: Ye Guangfu and Li Guangsu's 8.5-hour EVA is the longest in China's history.
2.Critical Maintenance: The astronauts installed a space debris protection device and inspected extravehicular equipment.
3.Ongoing Challenges: Space junk remains a significant threat, highlighted by a recent debris strike on Tiangong's solar arrays.
According to the state-run Xinhua news service, this spacewalk, or extravehicular activity (EVA), involved crucial tasks such as installing the space station's debris protection device and inspecting extravehicular equipment and facilities. "Ye and Li completed the installation of the space station's space debris protection device and the inspection of extravehicular equipment and facilities," officials with the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) reported in an update, translated via Google.
Space debris poses a significant concern for Chinese space officials, as evidenced by a recent incident where Tiangong experienced a partial power loss due to a debris strike on its solar arrays.
Today's EVA marked the first for Li and the second for Ye, who previously conducted an EVA during the Shenzhou 13 mission in December 2021. Inside the Tiangong space station, the third member of the Shenzhou 18 crew, Li Cong, provided critical support by monitoring the spacewalkers and their activities.
This EVA was the first of the six-month-long Shenzhou 18 mission, which launched in late April. For context, China's previous crewed flight, Shenzhou 17, performed two spacewalks outside Tiangong, while Shenzhou 15 set the record for the most EVAs in a single mission with four.
Chinese Astronauts Set New Spacewalking Record
The Shenzhou 18 mission is expected to be similarly busy. CMSA officials indicated that numerous scientific experiments, technical tests, and additional astronaut extravehicular activities are planned.
"According to the plan, a large number of scientific experiments and technical tests, as well as astronaut crew extravehicular activities and application payload extravehicular missions, will be carried out during the Shenzhou 18 manned flight mission," they wrote in their update.
To date, Chinese astronauts have conducted a total of 16 spacewalks. The nation's first EVA occurred on September 27, 2008, when astronaut Zhai Zhigang spent about 20 minutes outside his Shenzhou 7 capsule, marking the beginning of China's extravehicular endeavors.
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