Chinese astronauts complete spacewalk inspecting damaged Shenzhou capsule
Two Chinese astronauts yesterday completed their first spacewalk since arriving on China’s Tiangong-3 space station, during which they inspected the damaged viewport on the Shenzhou-20 capsule as well as installed a cover to protective that damage when the capsule returns to Earth.
Shenzhou-21 mission commander Zhang Lu and rookie crewmate Wu Fei began an extravehicular activity (EVA) at 9:28 p.m. Eastern, Dec. 8 (0228 UTC, Dec. 9), when Zhang opened the Wentian experiment module airlock hatch and exited the Tiangong space station.
The more than eight-hour EVA concluded at 5:42 a.m. Eastern (1042 UTC) Dec. 9, with the pair safely back inside Tiangong. Zhang and Wu, wearing Feitian EVA suits with red and blue markings respectively, were assisted by the space station’s robotic arm, crewmate Zhang Hongzhang from inside Tiangong, and teams in mission control. New, upgraded Feitian suits were delivered to Tiangong via the July Tianzhou-9 cargo mission.
The first series of tasks centered on the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft, the return module of which suffered a suspected debris impact to a viewport window, rendering the spacecraft unsafe to return its three-astronaut crew to Earth in early November. At around 12:19 a.m. Eastern, Zhang Lu approached the viewport window of the Shenzhou-20 return module while attached to the Tiandong robotic arm and photographed and assessed the damage.
China has said that the damage was caused by a millimeter-sized object that impacted at high speed. It has yet however to release any images of the damage, and provided no other details.
Thus, we still do not know the damage’s exact nature, other than what that state-run press has told us. It could very well be that this damage was caused by some other factor that China does not wish to reveal.
NOTE: This is a recreation of a post published on December 10, 2025 that was lost during this morning’s server outage.
Two Chinese astronauts yesterday completed their first spacewalk since arriving on China’s Tiangong-3 space station, during which they inspected the damaged viewport on the Shenzhou-20 capsule as well as installed a cover to protective that damage when the capsule returns to Earth.
Shenzhou-21 mission commander Zhang Lu and rookie crewmate Wu Fei began an extravehicular activity (EVA) at 9:28 p.m. Eastern, Dec. 8 (0228 UTC, Dec. 9), when Zhang opened the Wentian experiment module airlock hatch and exited the Tiangong space station.
The more than eight-hour EVA concluded at 5:42 a.m. Eastern (1042 UTC) Dec. 9, with the pair safely back inside Tiangong. Zhang and Wu, wearing Feitian EVA suits with red and blue markings respectively, were assisted by the space station’s robotic arm, crewmate Zhang Hongzhang from inside Tiangong, and teams in mission control. New, upgraded Feitian suits were delivered to Tiangong via the July Tianzhou-9 cargo mission.
The first series of tasks centered on the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft, the return module of which suffered a suspected debris impact to a viewport window, rendering the spacecraft unsafe to return its three-astronaut crew to Earth in early November. At around 12:19 a.m. Eastern, Zhang Lu approached the viewport window of the Shenzhou-20 return module while attached to the Tiandong robotic arm and photographed and assessed the damage.
China has said that the damage was caused by a millimeter-sized object that impacted at high speed. It has yet however to release any images of the damage, and provided no other details.
Thus, we still do not know the damage’s exact nature, other than what that state-run press has told us. It could very well be that this damage was caused by some other factor that China does not wish to reveal.
NOTE: This is a recreation of a post published on December 10, 2025 that was lost during this morning’s server outage.
