Status: 04.07.2021 4:48 p.m.
They have been in space for almost three weeks, and now the first field mission has taken place: Two Taikonauts have left China’s new space station for the first time – among other things to set up a panorama camera.
Around three weeks after arriving on China’s new space station, two Chinese have completed their first space walk. The Taikonauts Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo left the core module of the “Tiangong” station, as announced by the Chinese space agency. During their seven-hour mission, they performed work on the robotic arm and set up a panoramic camera.
Numerous people followed the mission on television and online. It was the first of two planned field missions during the Taikonauts’ three-month stay on board the space station.
Taikonauts in space for almost three weeks
China launched the first manned mission to its new “Tiangong” (“Heavenly Palace”) space station in mid-June, the core module of which was brought into orbit at the end of April. Liu and Tang are supposed to push ahead with the expansion of the station under the command of their colleague Nie Haisheng.
The safe return of Liu unds proves “the great success of the first spacewalk in the construction of our country’s space station,” said the space agency.
“It’s nice out here”
TV images showed the astronauts preparing for the spacewalk by putting on their equipment and doing health checks. Then the two crew members opened the hatch and left the module in their suits, which weigh about 130 kilograms. Liu was transported to his workplace using a mechanical arm, while Tang climbed out of the hatch to where he was supposed to be. In a video showing Liu exiting the cabin, he said, “Wow, it’s too nice out here!”
The mission sparked numerous reactions on the internet. A hashtag about the space walk reached around 200 million views on China’s Twitter-like platform Weibo.
In recent years, China has invested billions in its space programs in order to catch up with the space nations USA and Russia. Beijing is planning eleven rocket launches alone by the end of next year, including three manned missions to its space station. The current mission is China’s first manned space mission in almost five years and the longest manned mission in the country at all. In preparation, the crew completed more than 6000 hours of training.