China’s three astronauts successfully return to Earth after spending 90 days on the nation’s new space station

• Three Chinese astronauts who lived on the nation’s new space station module have returned home after spending 90 days in space
• The trip will took 30 hours and the crew landed in the Gobi Desert on Friday at 1:30am ET
• They were then carried away from the landing site and boarded a helicopter that took them to Beijing  

A trio of Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on Friday after a 90-day stay aboard their nation´s first space station in China´s longest mission yet a mission that is three times longer than any Chinese crew.

Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo landed in the Shenzhou-12 spaceship just after 1:30qam ET after having undocked from the Tianhe module the previous day.

State broadcaster CCTV showed footage of the spacecraft parachuting to land in the Gobi Desert where it was met by helicopters and off-road vehicles. 

Minutes later, a crew of technicians began opening the hatch of the capsule, which appeared undamaged.

The three astronauts emerged about 30 minutes later and were seated in reclining chairs just outside the capsule to allow them time to readjust to Earth’s gravity after three months of living in a weightless environment. 

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In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese astronauts from left, Tang Hongbo, Nie Haisheng and Liu Boming wave at the Dongfeng landing site in northern China’s Inner Mongolia 

They were then carried away from the landing site and later boarded a helicopter that took them to Beijing.

‘With China’s growing strength and the rising level of Chinese technology, I firmly believe there will even more astronauts who will set new records,’ mission commander Nie told CCTV.

After launching on June 17, the three astronauts went on two spacewalks, deployed a 33-foot mechanical arm, and had a video call with Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.

While few details have been made public by China´s military, which runs the space program, astronaut trios are expected to be brought on 90-day missions to the station over the next two years to make it fully functional.

 State broadcaster CCTV showed footage of the spacecraft parachuting to land in the Gobi Desert where it was met by helicopters and off-road vehicles

‘Welcome home,’ a broadcaster could be heard saying over the livestream in the early morning hours Friday

The government has not announced the names of the next set of astronauts nor the launch date of Shenzhou-13.

The Tianhe module, which launched on April 18, is just the first of four pieces of China’s complete space station.

China aims to complete its Chinese Space Station, known as Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) by the end of 2022, state media reported, after several further modules are launched.

It is expected to have a mass between 180,000 and 220,000 pounds – roughly one-fifth the mass of the ISS, which is 925,335 pounds.

The 22-tonne module, named ‘Tianhe’, or ‘Harmony of the Heavens’, was the living quarters for three crew members who are now making their way home.

China has sent 14 astronauts into space since 2003, when it became only the third country after the former Soviet Union and the United States to do so on its own.

China´s space program has advanced at a measured pace and has largely avoided many of the problems that marked the U.S. and Russian programs that were locked in intense competition during the heady early days of spaceflight.

‘With China’s growing strength and the rising level of Chinese technology, I firmly believe there will even more astronauts who will set new records,’ mission commander Nie told CCTV

The three astronauts emerged about 30 minutes later and were seated in reclining chairs just outside the capsule to allow them time to readjust to Earth’s gravity after three months of living in a weightless environment

That has made it a source of enormous national pride, complementing the country’s rise to economic, technological, military and diplomatic prominence in recent years under the firm rule of the Communist Party and current leader Xi Jinping.

China embarked on its own space station program in the 1990s after being excluded from the International Space Station, largely due to U.S. objections to the Chinese space program’s secrecy and military backing.

China has simultaneously pushed ahead with uncrewed missions, placing a rover on the little-explored far side of the Moon and, in December, the Chang´e 5 probe returned lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since the 1970s.

China this year also landed its Tianwen-1 space probe on Mars, with its accompanying Zhurong rover venturing out to look for evidence of life.

Another program calls for collecting samples from an asteroid, an area in which Japan´s rival space program has made progress of late.

China also plans to dispatch another mission in 2024 to bring back lunar samples and is pursuing a possible crewed mission to the moon and eventually building a scientific base there, although no timeline has been proposed for such projects. 

A highly secretive space plane is also reportedly under development.

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