On June 17th, 2021, the Shenzhou XⅡ manned spacecraft went into space. It took three Chinese astronauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo to China's Tiangong space station. On September 17th, the astronauts came back to the earth. The return capsule(返回舱) touched down at the Dongfeng landing sitein Inner Mongolia.
Before heading home, the astronauts first prepared their bodies. They did exercises to train their muscles, bones and hearts to prepare for coming into the atmosphere(大气层) and hitting the ground.
During the jourmey, the astronauts experienced radio blackouts after getting into the atmosphere becauseof too much heat. This means the astronauts could not talk with the ground for several minutes. But thanks to the radar, scientists on the ground still knew where the spacecraft was.
When the spacecraft was about 10 kilometers above the ground, it still travelled at 200 meters per second. That's twice the speed of high-speed trains! Their parachutes (降落伞) helped the spacecraft in its return. It slowed the speed down to 7 to 8 meters per second. These special parachutes were made in China.
The three astronauts carried out two spacewalks and set up equipment (设备) outside the station. They also did a number of scientific experiments (实验) and tests. They had video calls with President Xi Jinping and hundreds of researchers, teachers and students in Hong Kong as well. Before leaving, they sent data back to the ground and organized the station.
Shenzhou XⅡ has shown that China is able to do long-term human spaceflight missions(太空飞行任务).
