Three Chinese taikonauts from the Shenzhou-20 mission have landed safely in the Dongfeng landing zone in Inner Mongolia, concluding an extended stay aboard the Tiangong space station after damage was found on their original return vehicle.
The crew — Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie — had launched to Tiangong in April 2025 for a planned long-duration mission. Their return, initially scheduled for early November 2025, was postponed when microfissures were detected in a window of the Shenzhou-20 return module, very likely caused by impact from small orbital debris. The spacecraft was deemed unsafe for crewed reentry.
China opted to bring the astronauts home using the Shenzhou-21 capsule, which had arrived at the station with the next rotation crew. The Shenzhou-21 spacecraft undocked from Tiangong and carried the Shenzhou-20 astronauts back to Earth, marking the first time in China’s human spaceflight program that an crew did not return in its own mission vehicle. Ground controllers reported the three taikonauts in good condition after landing.
The incident prompted the accelerated launch of the uncrewed Shenzhou-22 as a rescue and contingency vehicle, illustrating the increasing operational importance of redundant return options amid growing risks from space debris in low Earth orbit and the strategic priority China places on the resilience of its crewed spaceflight program.