Shenzhou-17 crew safely returns to Earth

China's twelfth crewed space mission has successfully returned to Earth at 09:46 am Universal Coordinated Time on April 30th, the capsule touched down at the Dongfeng landing site in the Inner Mongolia region. Returning from the Tiangong Space Station were, Tang Hongbo (汤洪波), Tang Shengjie (唐胜杰), and Jiang Xinlin (江新林).

The three taikonauts spent a little over one-hundred and eighty-seven days in space, with one-hundred and eighty-six days spent aboard the Tiangong Space Station. During their time aboard two spacewalks took place, all three astronauts performed spacewalks during the mission, the first by Tang Hongbo and Tang Shengjie with the second by Tang Hongbo and Jiang Xinlin.

Both spacewalks aboard the station were to perform maintenance and repair to systems outside. The first spacewalk took place in late December and saw two taikonauts repairing the solar panels attached to the Tianhe module. Three months later in early March the second spacewalk occurred which saw maintenance for the Tianhe module's power systems alongside inspection of the three modules. Both of these spacewalks occurred from the airlock of the Wentian module.

Shenzhou-17 was the first time Tang Shengjie and Jiang Xinlin flew to space, and the second for Tang Hongbo. Tang Hongbo has now spent over two-hundred and seventy-nine days in space, which makes him the record holder for time in space by a taikonaut.

While aboard the space station, the crew participated in eighty-four experiments and space application tests, which reportedly produced two-hundred samples in the fields of space life science and biotechnology, space medicine, and space material science. These samples were also returned to Earth with the crew on the 30th.

They also oversaw the arrival of the Tianzhou-7 cargo resupply spacecraft in mid-January, which was carrying supplies, clothing, and food to the space station to support their mission and the now-onboard Shenzhou-18 crew.

Now back on Earth, the crew will enter a medical quarantine period and undergo medical examinations before meeting the public and press again. It is believed all three will remain in China's taikonaut corps to fly again on future missions.

The Tiangong Space Station is now being operated and maintained by the Shenzhou-18 crew, Ye Guangfu, Li Cong, and Li Guangsu, as they were handed the 'key' to the station on the 27th.