China: Three Chinese astronauts have landed back on Earth after completing a six-month mission onboard China’s space station.

The crew of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft landed in Inner Mongolia, a Chinese autonomous region.

The three astronauts, commander Mr. Chen Dong and teammates Ms. Liu Yang and Mr. Cai Xuzhe, were sent to space on 5th June to monitor the final construction stage of the Tiangong space station.

During their mission, the three astronauts monitored the arrival of the second and third modules for Tiangong and carried out three spacewalks to check and test the new facilities.

A new crew of three fellow Chinese astronauts has also arrived at the space station aboard the Shenzhou-15 to take over the mission from them.

The new crew lifted off in the Shenzhou-15 spacecraft from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert in north-west China and will conduct the mission for six months. This is the final one of 11 missions which is needed to assemble the station that will operate for around a decade and lead experiments in near-zero gravity.

The new crew will be concentrating on installing equipment and facilities around the space station. Tiangong Space Station will be the second permanently inhabited space outpost, after the Nasa-led International Space Station.

The space station remarks a key milestone in China’s three-decades long manned space programme, which was first approved in 1992.

Construction of the station began in April 2021 with the launch of Tianhe as the living quarters of visiting astronauts.

WORLD ROUNDUP: Trump calls for the termination of the US Constitution