On Sunday morning, Liu and Tang exited the station’s core module – the first of two planned spacewalks during their mission. Chinese astronauts have performed the country’s first tandem spacewalk, working for seven hours on the outside of the new Tiangong station in orbit around Earth. Two astronauts work for seven hours outside Tiangong station, in first of two spacewalks planned for mission.
The spacewalk comes a week after China released footage from its Tianwen-1 mission to Mars. The videos, some of which included audio, show the landing of the country’s Zhurong rover and its operations on the Red Planet’s surface.
Tiangong’s construction is a significant step in China’s ambitious space programme. China has previously landed a rover on Mars and sent probes to the moon.
Last month, three astronauts blasted off to become the first crew of the station, where they will remain for three months in China’s longest crewed mission to date. On Sunday morning, two of them left the station for about seven hours of work in the first spacewalk at Tiangong, the China Manned Space Agency said.
“The safe return of astronauts Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo to the Tianhe core module marks the complete success of the first spacewalk in our country’s space station construction,” the agency said.
A mechanical arm was used to move one of the astronauts around the exterior of the station, while another one, unassisted, climbed around the outside of the cabin.
Their extra-terrestrial outing was broadcast on Chinese television, with footage showing the two astronauts opening the cabin door and exiting the module. A camera mounted on the helmet of one of the astronauts also provided a unique first-person view of the spacewalk.
The operation wasn’t just for show, however. The pair left the station in order to elevate the panoramic camera mounted outside the core module, and to test the capabilities of the craft’s robotic arm. The mission was scheduled to last six or seven hours.
The Chinese space agency planned a total of 11 launches through the end of 2022, including three more manned missions. More modules will be added to the station, which is also expected to take on larger crews.
